The Road to Dawn
by belleandthebeast91
Summary: [not in anyway associated with the sequels except one minor character] Norman Bates fights against his Mother's influence over him and his future beyond the asylum with the help of a former gang-banger turned nurse. Each person has secrets and ties to each other to overcome destructive and unforgiving pasts/actions.
1. Chapter 1

Chapt. 1 – Old Habits Die Hard

December 17 1959 – 7:30pm [the hideout]

"Come on! That place is a frickin' jackpot, guys! I'm telling you it's the MOTHER of all places for a heist."

"What makes you so sure, M.D?"

"Because myself and couple of others have scouted almost every single mansion and hotel around Fairvale that could be a potential breakthrough for the gang. We've done houses and since we are such a well off town, I said to myself, why the hell not try slightly out of town places? _This one_ takes the frickin' cake, man."

"I don't know…I've heard some pretty weird stories come out of that place. No one really stops around that mansion or motel anymore, unless it's the occasional out of town visitor so I've heard. There was bad business there ten years ago, because the woman who used to live there killed herself along this man she was quote on quote "involved with." This was supposedly going to be her second marriage because her first husband mysteriously died. Strychnine. She poisoned this man and herself when she found out he was still married. Talk about a total birdbrain, "answered a young man with olive skin named Ralph.

"Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch. Bit of an understatement, M.D. The place has been quiet ever since. Do you think there's anyone still home?"

"Yes, but who cares. Only the dead slut's son, that nervous, weird alien man."

"Norman Bates?"

"Yeah, but I heard the dude is a freak anyway. Lives alone. Barely goes out. He can't stop us."

"Oh, he can't? He's like 6'2 to your 5'4, anyone knows he'll frickin' beat you to a pulp. A woman knows her limits for a man that tall," said Matt, who had known M.D since preschool, when she and him moved at the same time to Fairvale six years before.

"What the hell are you saying? I wouldn't be leader of the frickin' gang if I thought I was weak. He's the most aimless guy you'll ever see in your entire life. For a tall young man like him, he has the demeanor of a nine year old. Believe me I spied on him several times to memorize his facial gestures, reactions, movements, and mannerisms in a hardware store, like those rare times he actually does go out. He seems to stutter a bit too when he's anxious or frustrated."

"You stalker, why do pay so much attention to detail like that? It bugs the crap out of us, Mad."

"Matt, you know I love subtly. My parents always used it on each other if something was bothering them. And that's how the arguments started."

"Well, what was he buying?" asked another member Jack.

"Oh, just tools, needles, and pins. For what I have no idea. He goes to those isles religiously whenever I've seen him. Then, I followed him to this department store where he went a bought this wig and an apron dress thing."

A young man with ginger hair named Dennis chuckled while attempting to breathe, "Oh my god, Mad, why the heck would he'd buy those?"

"I don't know, he's a fucking idiot," remarked M.D curtly.

"He's getting ready Halloween? Aaaaaand trying to dress up as Mrs. Claus for Christmas time coming?" pondered Matt.

"Dude, Halloween just passed, by the way you looked awesome as an Elvis Presley double, nearly got you a girlfriend. She literally thought you were _him_!" said Ralph.

"Dude, the guy's probably in the fucking closet like every other single man who's not married by 35. I heard from other guys in our gang that he was like some kind of Momma's boy. Mrs. Bates never let him go out with friends or god forbid even date. The guys called her "cockblocker" when I asked them about it. Always depended on her approval. You've never seen him in town. I've never seen him in town a lot especially not on a date with any chick. But that's my opinion, what you think, M.D?" explained Jack in a comical tone.

"Wait, how do you know a damn thing about Bates?" asked M.D.

"This man, who is like a friend of mine. He works with this one guy named Sam Loomis in hardware store said so. Loomis was a close friend to Bates since like middle school, like Bates's only friend," Jack said.

"And we can't forget, Mommy Dearest?" laughed Ralph putting his hands up clapping.

"Y-Yeah that too you can say, God that's creepy, guys. But Loomis and Bates mysteriously broke up after Mrs. Bates's and her lover's deaths. Sam, I've heard, doesn't want to talk about Norman anymore. Almost like if you mention something about the Bates family, even his name, or the mansion/motel he'll go quiet and walk out of the room and into his office. He won't come out for hours."

"Why? What's the secret? The worst has already happened. His mother, her first husband, and her lover are out of the picture," said M.D.

"I don't know, but it makes it all the more weird that maybe we should just find a different venue."

"Guys, let's go anyway and just check it out. Momma's boy or not I'm not gonna let _this one_ go."

"Whatever you say, boss," answered Matt.

The local youth gang, led by Madeline Brink, also nicknamed "M.D" or "Mad Dog" approached the Bates Motel with caution and upright persistency. As elegant and girl-next-doorish the eighteen year old seemed on the surface, with neck length wavy dark hair, mesmerizingly long eyebrows, wide piercing eyes, and a sweet-heart shaped face, a calculated impulsivity simmered beneath her. They had heard of a disappearance of a young woman named Marion Crane in the area, with leads pointing to the Bates Motel, and felt it would be the perfect time to stir up trouble around town. The gang always fed on drama or grand schemes playing about in Fairvale to strike up attention and get other youths to join. The Bates Motel was the one place in Fairvale that had been unscathed by their notorious robberies and occasional drug raids. Madeline wasn't about to let this place out of her grasp, especially to gang-bang from the one of the town's eligible bachelors, a target group she specifically prided herself on raiding the most.

"_Norman Bates…what a load. I can handle this guy, he'll be like every other unassuming Fairvale tool I've met. With that remote property of his, it's like he's begging to be 'gang-banged,'"_ she thought.

"Well what are we waiting for, let's go!" yelled Jack motioning for everyone to get inside the car towards the Bates Motel.

An Aston Martin containing the five youths pulled up into the Bates Motel drive way. The only lights that simmered around the property included the motel's, the sign post, and the dark-lit mansion first bedroom windows. The night was stark clear allowing the youths to view the Milky Way with precision not seen in the town. A half shone moon laid above the formidable, intrusive Victorian mansion above the fragile motel complex. The office area was darkened with only the door opening leading to a parlor full of knick-knacks, books, and what looked like shadows of stuffed birds. Each cabin miraculously locked and numbered to 12. Tumble weeds swayed as the air was still and silent then, diminishing activity for blowing wind. Maddie recommended that they each paint their faces and any visible body parts certain colors to blend in with assigned parts of the motel surroundings like the wood or bushes. It would be the only way to break in effectively into the mansion and cabins.

"I'll get out first, guys, need to observe the property."

Maddie opened up the front door of the Aston Martin and scanned her surroundings. The Chaperone had always coached her to become familiar with surroundings first to ensure safety and innocence to make an effective attack on property. It would always put tougher members on the line than to sacrifice the weaker ones. Taking brief strolls down the wooded way of the motel leading to the other cabins. Then her eyes darted to the huge mansion on the hill. Lights seemed to be on in the foyer and the upper bedroom as far as her vision could muster. She could most make out a shadowy figure sitting in the window, as though its hair was tied up in a bun. Maddie immediately brushed it off thinking it was just reflections from Bates's lamp or movie aficionado of Elizabeth Taylor she joked.

"Hm…mostly browns, blacks, tans, reds, and blues. We should be able to get a bunch of stuff out tonight. Trash some rooms, and get drugged. No biggie. Bates'll be asleep as we are doing this stuff," she shouted back to the members.

"_This is gonna be delicious!"_ a smirk beginning to form about her face as she stared up at the blinding lighted upper bedroom. She walked back to the car to tell her compatriots to gear up for the night and prepare to make some noise.

Norman Bates was finishing up getting ready for bed until he heard the voices from outside. They were coming from the right wing of the mansion toward his mother's room. Late night visitors were such an inconvenience for him sometimes, he wished to go to bed soon.

"Norman! _Looks like we have company_," his mother shouted.

"What?" Norman asked brushing his teeth.

"THAT MEANS GET YOUR SMARMY LITTLE BEHIND OVER HERE!"

"Mother, please, it's late and we've been through this before with the others. They're just lost folks minding their own business. Besides, we have to be careful now."

"Minding their own business? Ha! And you talk about "privacy," how about making dinner for the blond slut, huh? Where's the privacy there, boy? You're focus is only on me, remember?"

Brushing his hand through his short dark cropped wavy hair, he supposed she's right. She always was for that matter, there was no use arguing. Norman rushed over and gently opened up the shades to see Maddie and her friends in the process of setting themselves up in assigned places of camouflage. Norman watched intently at the movements and gestures she gave to her members and which directions to go around for easy access to doors.

"What are they doing, boy?" asked Mother.

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out," he said confidently.

It had been less than a week since someone had come to the property. But it was his own duty to protect what had to be protected. His mother and the treasured years old property was all he had. The two of them living like there was no one else in the world. Norman looked back at the closet and in a partial trance opened the door. He began to hesitate, his vision becoming cloudy, how he hated when people intruded upon him and Mother….

"Ahhh, this again….Why are you questioning your actions, boy?" she asked.

"I don't think this is a good idea, Mother."

"What? Why not?"

"This could be a risk to the motel. They may find you and take you away."

"Not a chance! If I know you, you've done even worse things than I could ever dream of."

"NO! SHUT UP! That was long ago. It was your fault, not mine."

"Alright then. First be a good boy and take you pitiful eyes off the window. Second, what you can do after is to kill that dark haired bitch."

Norman became silent and looked abruptly toward the closet which also held a large butcher knife. Insurmountable rage and thoughts of the colors red and black began to flash through his head. The temptation to strike at any moment seemed imminent. Norman ran back to the window and peered to see that the members had disappeared, possibly hiding. He only saw whom he nicknamed the mysterious girl, Skylark, because of her slick brown feather-like hair, waiting at the front door step of the mansion. Norman looked back at his mother, whom he saw nodding. A smirk began to form at the edges of his face.

"I'll protect you, Mother. I can't let customers down no matter what they are doing. I'm going to see what Skylark wants first."

Norman ran back to his room to put on a new pair of clothes. His favorite combination, a white collared shirt, black sweater, kakis, and Brooks Brothers shoes. He slicked his hair into his usual do which usually attracted the unwanted attention of his opposite sex counterparts when they stayed at the motel. He gazed at himself in the mirror, "Would this face ever lie to anyone?" Walking quietly down the steps, he saw the outlines of Skylark gliding towards the darkened office.

"What does she want there? I thought I locked the door."

He suddenly heard a rumbling in the basement. One of the gang members must have gotten in through the outside cellar door. The lock had been broken by shotgun. Dennis had found his way into the fruit cellar and began to store away tools and wooden materials to bring back to the car. Norman ran toward the cellar door and peered in the window on the young man.

"Man this place is a dump. Who keeps their frickin' basement smelling like rotten fruit? Crap, this was a pointless place for Mad Dog to put me in," he sulked.

_"Mad Dog?"_ Norman thought and then suddenly remembered Skylark.

"Damn this is ridiculous, this place gives me the creeps. Just hope nothing bad happened to the old crone."

"How dare he call me that!" Norman heard his mother say as he turned his head upstairs.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that, Mother…." Norman said quietly. He looked up the stairs again and eyed his mother's door intently. _It was time for payback_ he thought, he couldn't let anything or anyone insult her, his vision becoming increasingly foggy and could feel his head burning at the very insult of his mother. He would never let this youth touch her.

The ginger-headed boy began to finish up collecting tools and a few ripened apples on the shelf.

"That's right. Oh, another way out, maybe there's a vase or plant in the foyer."

Dennis made his way to the glass door to the main hall way. Suddenly a shadowy figure that looked like an old woman shot up out of nowhere, running towards the ginger head. He tried to turn around but it was too late as the old woman's butcher knife had pierced his chest. Blood began to gush from his mouth as the repeated stabbing made him collapse to the bottom of the stairs. The old woman suddenly rushed back upstairs.

"Mother! Oh God, Mother! Blood! Blood!" Norman Bates cried out. He ran downstairs to collect Dennis and put him in one of the closets in the basement. He quickly wiped up and soaped any remains or bloodstains left. Now his focus was on Skylark and the others as he left the room.

"Stupid boy, that's what happens when you talk ugly about your elders."

"Dennis!" shouted Maddie.

"Dennis, where are you man?" circled Matt and ran back and forth across the motel complex.

"He's not here, Matt, give it a rest," she said.

"Maybe he chickened out and ran home without us knowing," added Ralph.

"That's not like him, Dennis would never freak out," said Maddie.

"Well one of us has to go up to the mansion to check on him," offered Matt.

"Jack, why don't you go up and check it out?"

"Okay, fine, but don't say I didn't warn ya," said Jack putting a hand to his chest.

Jack walked triumphantly up toward the house as Maddie and the other two members Ralph and Matt counted up the items they collected from each cabin. Maddie herself was saving up for the point to rob the register in the office while she would confront Bates. As Jack entered the mansion, Matt's head had begun to pulse slightly.

"Maddie, do you really think you should have sent Jack up there all alone?"

"Dude, I know. Bates is what I just described to you. Jack could easily just seduce him to have a beer with him and then rob the poor bastard blind. Simple as that. Am I ever not wrong?"

"I don't know, Maddie. I just don't know. It's been too quiet tonight. You suspect Norman to come out by now as anyone we've confronted and chase us off."

"Yeah, dude you don't think he's secretly _seen_ us?" asked Ralph.

"I'm getting suspicious, maybe he's secretly planning to 'punk' us. Maybe one of our own as narked on us and told him," said Matt.

"That's the stupidest thing ever, guys. There's no one else but him home. What's the threat?" asked Maddie frowning.

"Anyway why don't you say we get high now, just for kicks?" asked Ralph smirking.

"Let's rent out another cabin, okay?"

"Sure. Let's do it!" proposed Matt.

They lit their joints in merry moments of glory and accomplishment, as Jack lay at the floor of Mother's room with a rope around his neck. A bit of curiosity to rob the head bedroom made "her" aroused with anger. Norman looked down at blonde haired Jack helplessly in shambles on an oriental rug.

"You know you remind me of someone (stroking Jack's hair). I'd rather not say, it's too painful to recall…."

He carried Jack down to the last place he had hid Dennis two hours earlier.

_"Why must this always happen to us? She just can't help the things she does,"_ Norman thought blood still drenched on his hands from carrying Dennis.

The three youths completely drugged out of their minds accidentally broke a window in Cabin 9.

"Dude, I don't think our buddy is coming out," said Matt with two joints hanging out of his mouth.

"Or maybe he "came out" with them!" laughed Ralph and lit another joint with Maddie laid out on Cabin 9's bed princess-like.

"Dude, shut up! Dennis and Jack are just being d-bags for all we know," she said.

"I think it's best if we just call it a night, right, Matt?" suggested Ralph.

"Yeah, like, I'm soooooooo buzzed now, I feel like dressing up in women's clothes. Isn't that weird? Like I'm not a dandy or anything bizarre," said Matt with his eyes rolling back.

"Dude, if you did that, I'd stop being your friend immediately."

"Oh my god, guys, just go home. I'll wait for the bastard to emerge. I'll walk home or I'll call you if I have to by the register office," Maddie insinuated and pointed to the door.

"Okay, whatever you say, Mad," the two boys said and gathered their things and walked out the door.

Ralph and Matt stepped into the Aston Martin and sped along the old highway back toward Fairvale. Maddie came out of Cabin 9 and saw that the office light was on. She felt extremely improper for breaking into the other cabins. However, her friends only closed the doors, yet left each room a mess on the inside to make it seem like no one stepped in from out. She hoped Bates wouldn't sue her. Maddie believed the less footprints she left on a crime scene the better chance she had of getting away. She walked into the office light and there he was. Norman looked up instantly in the chair behind the desk. Maddie rested a shoulder at the doorway of the office. For a moment the two eyed each other with intrigue like different animal species. He of course noticed her piercing eyes and her exceptionally curvaceous hips. She of course noticed his broad exaggerated shoulders, long neck, and childlike facial features.

"Hi!" Norman said almost like he snapped out of a trance. "I apologize for not coming down earlier. I feel so unprofessional. I didn't hear anyone until I heard a crash."

"No, it's okay, me and the guys just chilling here. We like the nights."

"Really?"

"Yep. We decided to take a break and just see the desert a bit."

She admired the way the young man got up and leaned over, right hip out and eyed her more. Of course she was always the one to act seductive at first glance of her innocents.

"That's nice. It gets kind of boring out here. Not a lot to do really. Of course for me it's just running the office, tending the grounds and cabins, doing chores, errands for Mother, and you've noticed the birds around here I hope. My hobby is stuffing things, you know, taxidermy."

"Zoology?"

"What?"

Maddie chuckled to herself. It amused her to play mind games with people, make them lose their cool, "That's an interesting hobby. Very unique."

"Not to mention uncommon, too."

His face was beginning to twitch as she saw a slight smile growing on his face. _God, he's bad at not showing he's flirting with me_, she thought, _is this how he is with other women?_ Maddie herself couldn't help but burst out into laugher, _Was this really supposed to be all this guy was? Where was the scare? Where's the brutal streak? Where's the secret asshole lying beneath his fair, perfect skin? Wait...what?_ Norman looked at Maddie with a puzzled expression.

"What's so funny?"

"It's nothing. It's just been a while since I've had a guy humor me like this...ummmm Mr. Bates?"

"Norman. Y-You can call me Norman."

"Norman. I wanted to ask if you had a room that I could stay in for the night? I just had the most absurd day and I really just wanna crash for the night."

"Yes, I do have a room. FOC – free of charge! Where would you like?"

"Cabin 9, yeah, my buddies and I kinda sorta damaged the room. We had joints in there. Did I mention the door knob broke cause my friend Ralph is a fucking idiot?" Maddie chuckled hysterically.

Norman's facial expression of smile and laughter suddenly shifted to a stoic look of horror. The change was so drastically it slightly frightened Maddie and she turned her eyes away making up her nervousness by running her hand through her hair.

"WHAT? So that's where the broken glass noise came from…."

"Sorry…."

"No it's not fine….Nevermind. I'll fix it later. That's such an inconvenience. Why would you do that?"

"I don't know, we just got a bit out of hand, if it's okay, I can fix it."

"No you don't have to do anything. I have some money to buy some stuff. I don't go out that often because Mother needs me. But I have no choice. I just have to go into the department store tomorrow."

"Maybe I can come with you."

"That'd be swell, Ms….."

"Brink."

"Brink that's it. That's an aggressive sounding last name. Why don't you sign in?"

Maddie began to sign in and eventually remarked, "Haha, thanks. My father always prides me on it."

Norman smiled again and looked down at her handwriting. Her cursive techniques almost mirrored his own font of lettering.

"I'll get your bags."

"I haven't any. My friends drove off, but they'll pick me up tomorr-"

Norman observed Maddie for a second and she cocked her head to the side. He walked out the door slightly with the key, swinging his hip around the bend and gave her a nod to come forward. Maddie became amused at the way he even walked and gestured. A certain charm and boyishness nuisance she never saw in any other guy or eligible bachelor she gang banged. He would definitely be an easy victim. They came to Cabin 9 and Norman took some time to gradually board up the back window.

"There we go. The bed is soft and there's hangers in the closet, and stationary with Bates Motel printed on it, in case you want to make your friends back home feel envious," he said smiling nervously.

Maddie tried to hold back the laughter and thought to herself, _"The game just keeps getting easier and easier. He is small potatoes compared to the others. The Chaperone is gonna be proud of me. Now time for step two, I gotta get him drunk, VERY DRUNK." _

Norman then turned his head toward the bathroom and turned the light on, "And…over there."

"The bathroom?" Maddie asked.

"Yeah."

Maddie put her pocket book on the lamp table and sat on the bed.

Norman glanced briefly around the room and returned his gaze to Maddie. She seemed so enigmatic and stunning in the motel room light. What was behind those piercing chocolate eyes and soft looking skin, "Well, I'll be going to bed now. I'm sorry if I'm unable to talk to you more, maybe tomorrow we can. I'll bring you some breakfast, say...8am. It's very late."

"No!"

Norman looked at her again. There was an honest and innocent sincerity Maddie sensed in his eyes. This was it, lure him in to get the money and get out. The impulses colliding inside were killing her. O_h she wanted to get him drunk and smack him and beat him up like she did the others, and escape with the cash, leaving him in the dust, he was childish and seemed gullible enough to fall for her charms, but at the same time she wanted to hold him and protect him even if he refused her advances_. Inconsiderate she was of her thoughts of such things, Maddie quickly brushed them aside.

"I mean, no, could you stay for just a little bit with me? I kind of get freaked out of the night, ever since I was a little girl."

"Alright, I really don't want to go back up to the house either. Mother usually doesn't allow me to have company over a lot, so it's just me."

"Really?"

"Yes, I mean it does get a bit lonely here. People just come and go. Getting directions and that's it. The new highway is built and it's kind of ruined business here, but no use dwelling on our losses."

"Shouldn't money matter to you though?"

"Not so much, I use what I have for necessities and stuff like that. I have very little inheritance left."

"That's sad, I wish I could help you, Norman."

"No there isn't anything you can do. It's not your fault. It's not your motel."

"Sorry."

Norman then sat on the Cabin 9 bed and put his hands to his face. Maddie leaned over to him and took one hand away from him, "Are you okay?"

Norman shuttered and Maddie stood back slightly. He almost resembled a deer about to bolt out the door.

"I'm fine, Ms. Brink. It's just—ah, I can't believe you tried to damage my property."

"You seem attached to this place."

"This place? This place happens to be my only world. I grew up in that house up there. I had a very happy childhood. My mother and I were more than happy."

Maddie nudged back from the bed side, "I apologize. I didn't mean it like that. Like people in Fairvale, they kinda don't get sooo worked up about matters like this. They just help each other and problems just to get fixed. Me and the guys are just rough that way, can't really change us."

Norman shot her a dirty look, "For me it's different. It's everything I've wanted. I don't need anything else, not now at the moment."

_The poor man needed help_ Maddie thought, _maybe it was too late_. _Was it worth it to put this guy through what she put the others through? Why couldn't she bring herself to hurt him? Was it his trick as well to play innocent as well?_

Norman laid back on the bed and shrugged his shoulders briefly and gazed at Maddie still sitting up. If Mother ever found him with this louse around the property, there would certainly be hell to pay. He knew this, but didn't want to do it.

_She doesn't deserve to die_, was there anyway to end this nightmare, to escape a trap he was born into? _She seems lost, uncertain, and almost sad, why would her friends suddenly leave her like that? True friends always stick by you_, but what would he know of friendship. _Well, a boy's best friend is his mother_, he thought, but there was someone else, someone he was close to, who he divulged stories, secrets, things that Mother never knew or if she did she would have certainly disowned him years ago.

Their eyes never left each other for minutes on end. Not really doing anything but just watching.

"_He seems so inexperienced"_ Maddie thought, _"has he ever had a girlfriend?"_

Women whenever they'd stop by for directions or he saw them in town as he was in at the stores to pick up supplies constantly eyed him, but Mother would never approve obviously. The voices, her voice primarily, inescapable if dangerous feelings overtook him. At the tender age of 27, if only he knew the right moves and gestures he could to please this spunky dark haired teenage beauty. Maddie soon laid back on the bedside him, she didn't know why. She hadn't known exactly what to expect with him. This night was unusual and by now she would have been gone with the money, the Chaperone awarding her new found effort to become a rising Mafiosa. Norman repressed any urge he could to stop himself from suggesting he should leave her. Maybe just to watch her sleep, nothing more, to protect her from whatever darker, perverse things entered his imagination. He too was scared of the dark as she was, maybe company was in order. Maddie turned herself over on her left side to where Norman was and began instinctively to stroke his hair. His eyes darted up toward her hand, "What are you doing?"

Maddie took her hand away, "Sorry, I-I-ah-I don't know what came over me."

Norman felt ashamed, and for a moment, he didn't mind it. But one funny thing he realized was that he didn't think of his mother the time he stepped into the room with Maddie. Just having this girl beside him lessened his compulsive, morbid thoughts. He didn't seem willing for her to stop stroking, this feeling inside him that he could never fully explain, like rays of sun light on fresh green grass. It almost mirrored the same feeling he had with the other girls and the blonde from almost a week ago...what was it? He knew what it was, of course, but Mother would have none of it, betrayal and only doom would befall him.

_But just this moment_, _maybe, just maybe there would be a chance, even if it was beyond delusional hope._

Norman then began to mimic Maddie stroking her own hair. It felt warm and safe, almost like touching it made him less isolated and abandoned. Maddie smiled and traced a finger down from his hair to his cheek. He noticed Maddie's eyes were reddening.

_She's extremely tired_, _maybe I should leave her before anything else happens_.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine. My eyes are kinda hazy. You're been very kind."

Norman beamed at her, truthful and dear and replied, "Thanks for noticing that. I'll see you in the morning, dear." He suddenly placed a firm hand on his mouth, Mother of course would not approve of such compliments.

"What?"

Norman's eyes quickly flashed toward her legs and scanned quickly up to her eyes again.

"J-J-Just a compliment. Goodnight, Ms. Brink."

"Maddie, y-you can call me Maddie," she said tucking a wave of her hair behind her ear.

"_Just let moments with her last longer? You get back up to the house now!" _Mother shouted in the distance, "Maddie," Norman replied attempting to block out her voice.

"Yes?"

"I-I-Ah..."

"Is something wrong?"

"I need to get something. I'll be right back. Stay warm!" "_Here we go again_..."

Maddie quickly opened the door to see Norman running down the wooden path and up to the mansion through the peephole in Cabin 9. The light in the master bedroom was still on. She wished she could talk to him more, especially about what other secrets laid behind his motel. He looked particularly handsome in that black shirt and those thin cropped pants. Maddie had never laid eyes on a guy like him. What was a nice looking, boy-next-door type like him doing out here alone? This was atypical, but she felt a lucky young woman, for she too had never been relationship experienced. The whole idea of it was kinda of cheesy for her anyway, it wasn't going to happen. The gang and the Chaperone practically ate up her time. Any relationship would have impeded her progress to get up ranks.

"Wonder who does live up there. Forget getting him drunk, he seemed a bit nervous anyway. I'm not gonna pursue it tonight and playing up my seductive self. Not exactly the drunk kinda bum, Norman," Maddie said to herself.

_The register_, she remembered, there was no time to lose. She first laid down on her bed for about ten minutes and then mustered up any energy she had left to get up and open the door. She cocked up the plan inside her head those minutes she lay. She'd enter the office, open the register and run away quickly into the night without a trace. Maddie would tell the Chaperone about how she stole from Bates and lie that she got him drunk like she did the rest of them. She stepped into the deafly still air. The sign was off and so was the office light. The lights around the motel cabins were also shut a second after she made her first step. Maddie's breathing began to intensify, as if she knew already that the plan seemed a bit ludicrous. _Was he really alone?_ The very suspense and thought of it frightened her for a moment. A cold shiver ran down her spine and she leapt out onto the middle of the motel complex and looked up at the mansion. She thought she heard creaking in the bushes or behind the motel. The master bedroom light turned off. Her eyes began to widen and scan around more. She noticed the leftover can of black paint. A dead giveaway to Bates that she was gang-banging….hopefully he didn't notice. She quickly smeared black paint on her arms, face, legs and hands. She then tossed the can of paint off the property to a nearby swamp area just behind the motel.

_"That should take care of it." _

Suddenly for a moment, Maddie thought she saw a hint of metal. The tubular form looked like a car bumper. Maddie crouched down and then saw it disappear underneath the murky water. _No_, she thought, _it couldn't be, not him. Not Bates, are you kidding me? Dispose of cars like that, go to a dealership_. Business was first in Maddie's mind and brushed off the swamp incident. As she left the area, the thick black algae from small waves crashing about revealed a decrepit, post-morbid part of an older woman's hand, forever clenched in anger. Maddie quickly ran over to the office door and burst it open. She turned on the light to make things clearer. She placed her hands over the opening of the register and found over 200 dollars in cash. She could easily buy joints, booze, and plenty of fashion magazines with this stuff plus pay her way in membership to the Chaperone.

_"And they say women are the stupid, irrational ones,"_ she thought, "_I love men. They can be soooo frickin' gullible and manipulated. Just give em' the bat of your eyelashes and they're yours." _

Drunk with her accomplishment, Maddie gorged over the money. As she put the money in her pocketbook, a faint figure's shadow appeared not so far outside the door. Maddie looked up shuttered and closed the register. Shutting the light and crawling like a gecko, Maddie knelt down to the floor, every scent within her pulsed. She tried to blend in with the shadows of the office desk and plant amid the black paint smeared on her. Her hands and knees sticking down to the surface like a black widow spider. Her eyes darting to every direction around the office. The shadowy figures of two stuffed birds hung above her ominously. She poked her head outside the door and looked to the right. There in plain sight was a figure in the form of an old woman with a butcher knife. She stood still for a moment and for almost an instant Maddie saw a familiar smirk on the figure's face. The old woman screamed, raising the butcher knife toward Maddie. She dodged out of the way, tripping the old woman by kicking her in the shin, and slammed/locked the door.

"FUCK!" Maddie yelled. The butcher knife was banging on the door and the windows of the office. For once in her gang life, Maddie was at a total loss. She was trapped, and where the hell was Norman? Then she realized there was a separate door and burst open the lock with the two bells on the desk. It led to a parlor full of stuffed birds and Biblical/Greek paintings. Maddie looked around at anything that could help her escape and soon laid her eyes on a small window. She took one of Norman's taxidermy books and broke the glass. She leapt outside, money tight at her side and ran up to the mansion.

"NORMAN! NORMAN! NORMAN!" she yelled banging on the door.

The old woman scrambled up the stony stairs like a rabid dog, her breathing mimicking a lion prowl. Maddie realized the front door was open and quickly raced up the stairs toward the master bedroom. The room was dark though she thought it better this way so the old woman wouldn't catch her. She locked the door and turned on the light. She was safe and secure her in this sophisticated space. She then turned her attention to a figure in a rocking chair. She approached the figure and touched the elbow and the rocking chair slowly turned around. Norman Bates's mother, a corpse. Maddie screamed in horror at the sight and fell instantly on the master bed that still possessed the corpse's imprint. She scrambled off the bed and then thought, _"Wait, then if that's his mother, then who was….."_

"WHERE ARE YOU, YOU GOD DAMNED WHORE!" screamed a feeble voice.

_"Oh God, Norman,"_ Maddie looked at her fingers in horror.

_"He was doing a terrible job of his mother's voice"_ Maddie thought. The worst disguise ever, now all she had to do was to wait for him to calm down, if he did ever did do such things.

"YOU WON'T ESCAPE ME, GIRL!" Norman screamed as if in a trance.

She heard footsteps down the stairs and could just about hear him muttering something (eventually calling the police Maddie recognized).

"No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" she screamed and then looked back at his mother's corpse and realized, "Oh, God! I got to get out of here! Where the fuck are Dennis and Jack, Norman!?"

Suddenly, after fifteen minutes, Maddie heard police cars outside the mansion. She could hear rustling of clothes from the outside across the hallway. The police were shouting with a megaphone for Maddie to come out of the mansion for the murder of two young boys and for attempting to rob and raid the motel cabins and mansion.

"I'll go get her, she's weaker now that she was before. I'm strong enough to officers, please understand," Norman had whispered to one of the cops downstairs in the main hall.

"_You crazed, son of a..."_

Norman came up with keys to his mother's room and found Maddie traumatized, the police men still waiting outside. Her eyes were still fixed on the corpse.

"Looks like you know a lot about Mother. Don't tell anyone about her," he remarked with a smile.

Maddie shot him a dirty look as he handed her over to the policemen with the bodies of Dennis and Jack wrapped up.

"She tried to rob me, and she broke the Cabin 9 window, trashing all my rooms. She plotted to kill those innocent boys and me. She must have escaped the institution or jail."

"Ah, sorry for all the trouble here, Norman. Good thing you weren't fooled by her, we've been after this devil for years."

"Oh I'm not a fool and I'm not capable of being fooled, not even by a woman. She tried to kill me and there was nothing I could do but run and hide after she killed those boys. You just never know when she'll ever calm down in those episodes," he said eying Maddie with hatred and distrust.

"But Officer Hunt, it was Norman. He killed them! He tried to kill me! And he probably killed that woman Marion Crane too! He's hiding her on this property," Maddie explained desperately.

Everyone became silent as Maddie attempted to weave another incident, "I-I-I saw her car in the swamp, go see!"

"Ah that's a bunch of melarchy, Ms. Brink, maybe a lifetime in the kicker will teach ya," Officer Hunt said grumpily.

"And his mother, his mother is here too!"

"You should know Ms. Brink, his mother's dead and buried in Greenlawn Cemetery for the past ten years. Delusional creature."

Norman tilted his left shoulder and began to pop pieces of what looked like candy corn in his mouth. He then glanced at the police almost glassy eyed. Maddie could see a sweat drop coming down his face, his giraffe shaped neck pulsating. The uncontrollable anger just brewing underneath him, she could sense it about to come out at any minute, to protect what he thought was protecting as his live mother. She tilted her head down, but underneath she knew that at any moment he could revert into that manic state again. She wasn't about to push her luck. Did he even realize it?

"Norman you must be tired why don't you just settle down for the night. Ms. Brink, get inside the car, we're gonna have you locked up forever. Damn kids and their movies."

The ambulance trucks carried Dennis and Jack back to Fairvale as their parents had already been contacted over the deaths of their sons. Maddie in ultimate defeat slumped over in the police car and drifted off into an uncomfortable sleep. Norman Bates waited until they all left and looked back toward the house. The night had been filled with strangeness and perversity. Accomplishments overridden by inexorable forces of uncontrollable impulse. Maddie would prepare herself the next morning for a round of trials to "be convicted" and "pay" for what she did to the boys beyond a shadow of a doubt and detail with excruciating mental anguish her activities to her distraught, broken-hearted parents. As the cars drove away, a smile began to form at the edges of Norman's face as his mother held his hand next to him.

"That was too close. I won't let them take you ever again," he said looking straight at her.

"Oh Norman, my beautiful boy, I love you," she answered wrapping her arms around him.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapt. 2 – Trapped

**December 19 1959 1pm – Fairvale County Court House**

"_Madeline Brink, you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" asked the juror. _

_ "Yeah whatever," she said._

A scenario that repeated time and time again in her mind. Her mother crying on her husband's shoulder uncontrollably. How could this happen to their baby?

_"Who's place were you at that night, December 17__th__ 1959 at 8pm?" _

_ "The Bates Motel." _

_ "What activities were you intending?" _

_ "What's it any of your business, buddy? It's Bates who's responsible." _

_ "That's not proper language, Ms. Brink." _

_ "Don't call me Ms., you shabby minded snot." _

_ "Take Ms. Brink out, she's not quite in her right state of mind to continue the trial." _

_ "STOP IT! STOP IT! NO!" _as she was grabbed by police officers out the trial door to one of the white rooms.

Loyalties and friendships Maddie once had were lost and her trust between her parents became even more strained. How could their beautiful, honest daughter turn her back on them? To participate in such activities and commit such heinous crimes. For the blood was on her hands as a price for her friendship with Dennis and Jack. Surely it was her idea to pursue the Bates Motel as a location for their activities.

The gang life was just for fun, for friendship and loyalty, not greater ambitions. She had never aspired to anything nor did she want to, just to be a part of the Underworld. Within her mind, a "sound" reasoning came about: to do the right thing in looking out for yourself, following your heart in whatever you do AND take baby steps toward achieving total power and recognition by authority. The Chaperone would be her life and she wanted nothing more than to finally take the front seat and be in total control of the hearts and minds of people. Now that she was going to be behind bars after two trials, what else would she live for? The Chaperone would lose faith in her and there would be no use convincing him to take her in since she spent too much time with "coppers." Her parents for sure would never speak to her again. Their sweet, innocent, dark haired beauty, a criminal...No job and no prospects all at the age of 18. Throwing her life away for raucous violence, drugs, and notorious connections to formidable characters. To take on the world, to not be a scared little girl waiting to be rescued like all those other damsels in distress. Yet, how could this have happened to her? How could she be overturned by a man so unassuming, so elegant, so duplicitous and delusional? What did the murderer have that the gang banger didn't to one up others?

_Or what did they have in common_..._No_, she thought and brushed it off, _Norman Bates_... _I'll tell them,_ _the man who ruined my life and countless others. He's worse than me, I never faked or put a mask on anything I did. The Chaperone forced me to do it, I could have stopped what I was doing but no! He had to encourage me and now look where I am. I have no choice. _

The white room contained iron bars covering the stain glassed windows, almost church like, but where was penitence in a place like this? The silence within the room was deafening almost like a continuation of the jail cell the night before. The silent tears shed as women across the hall eyed her with strange, deathly glances. The muscle men on the other side ready to beat up anyone to a pulp. But this was her crowd and her future company... and yet within her own mind began to take form a growing repulsion for her desires of criminality. Thank God they would give her a fair trial the next day, the single cell in the Fairvale Town Jail with its wooden walls, paper thin bed, medium box sized windows, and dimmed lamp lights from the halls was enough to drive anyone mad. Her parents visited her for less than fifteen minutes.

In the confines of the jail hall, her father said nervously, _"Maddie...just take some time to think this through." _

_ Her mother was silent and beginning to shake convulsively. _

_ "Maybe this is a reflection period. You want me to call the Chaperone still?" _

_Her mother screaming and banging her head against the bars. Wailing Maddie's name over and over again. The guard ordered them to leave saying that Maddie is too much of a threat to society and the public at large._

Maddie suddenly recalled a movie about a man wrongly accused of murder, while his wife eventually became insane with guilt trying to prove his innocence. Now her focus was the trial the next day and how the hell she was going to get of this mess if she could. Her piercing eyes darted around the white room and could feel herself getting cold. She asked for a blanket by an assistant cop. As she sat in the chair to ponder her thoughts, a familiar figure suddenly popped into her head. The first time she saw his face, _his exaggeratedly broad shoulders, his comical smirk, his lanky figure, if only I could smother him in_..._NO, I DID NOT JUST THINK THAT_.

He was her adversary, not some random boy-next-door dandy she gang banged. The boy-next-door was not always the boy-next-door, as she knew all too well. Appearances are certainly deceiving yet why did all of Fairvale not know all this time for a decade? And he accused her of murder, _the nerve of that SOB_.

And of course...his mother. A horrid picture of her skeleton face entered Maddie's mind, but quickly blocked it out. It had given her repeated nightmares the prior night in jail and would probably haunt her forever in the corner of her mind. Her parents didn't believe her when she told them of Bates and his mother. What exactly did his mother do to Norman to murder her anyway? Because of that man she loved? Maybe she was a nice woman and was just too demanding or misunderstood? The madman was loose while she, the innocent one, in prison, put away someplace...that someplace she dreaded where undesirables would eat her up alive.

Suddenly the door swung open and the head police officer entered and said, "Young lady, I think there has been a terrible mistake."

"YOU THINK? YOU KNOW! What is it? Or I swear I'm gonna lose my fucking mind in this plaster palace."

"No need to panic or use profanity, dear, it looks like you weren't what we were convicting you to be."

"I'm not? Then I'm free?"

"Not exactly. With regard to murder you are clear of it, your two friends Mr. Dennis Rodney and Mr. Jack Pollack, I'm sorry. It looks like someone else has the burdened blood on their hands."

"I knew it," Maddie played along.

"That's strange. No one else in Fairvale suspected him. Such a nice and endearing guy, so unassuming and harmless, kind of like yourself, yet he did these-"

"It doesn't matter, he's guilty of murder of my best friends, his mother and her lover and God knows who else."

"He'll be here in twenty minutes. Mr. Sam Loomis and Ms. Lila Crane have him in custody. Intensive police custody to be more specific and we'd like you to move out for him."

"Oh I will, thank you," and Maddie began to rush out.

"Ah Ah ah...Miss. But you are still guilty."

"Guilty for what?"

The police officer folded his arms and raised an eyebrow.

"I'll never disclose that information. Being on the right side this stupid society was never an option for me, okay? Society sucks. Now how exactly are we going to do this?"

"First, you can try curbing that demeanor of yours and second we are transferring you to the juvenile delinquent center. You'll see a social worker and reform school aid to discuss your future. May need to transfer you out of your high school to be homeschooled. And you'll be seeing no more of those gang fellows. We think it's in your best interest and the interest of the public, please cooperate with us. Unless you want to share a cell with Bates?"

"Of course not. Never. The man ruined me...forever."

"Then don't ever think about him again. You are young and have a lot of time to think things over with your life. With him he's not so fortunate. We're gonna have him locked up for good. Make you feel better?"

"Yeah, it's one less criminal on the streets," she answered.

The police officer walked her out of the room.

_Man wish I could practice sounding less and less like a hypocrite_.

**December 19 3:30pm – The Bates Motel **

"Can't you hold him down more, Sam?" asked Lila dialing the motel phone for the police.

"Get away from me, you two bid punk!" screamed Norman in his mother's voice.

"Have to find some way to knock him out...OW!" shouted Sam as Norman had bitten his hand and attempted to run out the front door.

"Norman! Stop this!" Sam struggled to keep the mentally unstable young man under control.

"I'm NORMA BATES! NORMA! Your blonde haired bimbo just couldn't help but investigate the basement! Huh? Remember, curiosity killed the cat!" Norman said manically, he truly believed he had become his mother.

"He's lost his mind," Sam said frantically.

"They said they'll be here in a half hour," Lila remarked.

"That's nuts," said Sam still struggling to hold Norman kicking and screaming like a child.

"You knew all about this. About HIM, didn't you?" Lila asked.

Then Norman stopped convulsing and looked up at Sam. Sam went quiet, almost white washed in his face.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sam answered.

Norman suddenly became limp in Sam's arms, his eyes watering with mixed emotions.

"Ah-Not all of it, let's discuss it later," said Sam turning his head and Norman reverted into his mother's rage trance.

Sam snapped and finally put a large finger in Norman's neck to knock him out. The police and insane asylum staff came along with their prominent psychiatrist, Dr. Fred Richmond to collect Norman. Bound up almost in bands and chains inside a huge truck staffed by at least five other people in the trunk they made their way to the court house. Sam looked back at the decrepit motel owner through the glass door who had undutifully murdered Marion. Cold hearted and cruel the young man was, w_eak minded and delusional child_ Sam thought, _always was_.

Lila was still distraught and heartbroken, where was her sister now? They had been best friends and colleagues together, sharing their secret worlds. But now was the time for disclosure and acceptance. Fate had different plans for this uncomely trio of misfits. Sheriff Chambers assured Sam and Lila that they would learn to live and let live. They now had each other and not forget Marion Crane, with Bates out of the picture, all of the public would be spared of further crime.

"He'll be out of my troubles...our troubles. Oh Sam...Marion...she didn't deserve to die alone! I should have, no I could have. No! You could have..." Lila began to sob into Sam's arm in the front seat of the asylum mobile.

"Things will be just fine, you wait and see, Dr. Richmond will have this sorted out," Sam replied and turned her face up to his.

"But you and Norman," Lila said quietly.

Sam quickly put a hand over her mouth, "We can't disclose that stuff. I'm not in any way connected with him whatever he's done these past ten years. It's gonna hurt our case and it's an insult to Marion."

"Fine," Lila curtly said.

**December 19 1959 4pm - Fairvale County Court House**

The truck and police cars came by and the whole Fairvale Court house was full of bustling reporters, photographers, and citizens to see the famous mother-obsessed murderer. This was going to be the story of the New Year. The psychiatric staffers struggled to pull out the already awake and unhinged young man out.

"DON'T TOUCH ME YOU FILTHY MINDED SHRINKS! LOCK UP MY NORMAN AWAY FOR SOME CRIME YES! BUT DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH ME!"

Each step up was painful and the reporter's blinding lighted photo shots did not help either. As they carried Norman into the Court House, Maddie was on deck waiting to be released. Norman's ranting still continued to put up a fight with the attendants. Maddie, reading a manual about what kind of treatment and preparation was expected of her, suddenly looked up to see him.

_"The hell is that sound?"_ she thought looking up.

Again duping herself, she knew who is was.

"YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST UP AND JAIL ME LIKE THAT? HA! NO WAY, SLIME BALLS, I'll get out of here if it's the last thing I can make my Norman..."

Norman paused, almost loosing track of his insane statements, he of course had no recollection of those violent outbursts, too painful to think about. It wasn't all him he believed inside his fragmented mind, feeling too detached. She was making him say this, making him do everything. Not him committing those crimes. No, his mother wasn't dead...she was alive...in him, always.

Norman's eyes met Maddie's, for a moment of tenderness and sympathy for each other. Every muscle began to freeze up, his voice sounding more feminine, his eyes becoming more clouded. How the girl knew the truth about Mother, but consistently denied it himself. She who was unassuming, innocent, and so beautiful in the motel light with her piercing eyes, perfect hips, and medium sized legs similar to Marion's. _No_, he had to brush those thoughts, Norman Bates was gone forever, Mother was here to stay...

"YOU DON'T YOU DARE STARE AT HIM, DON'T EVEN TOUCH HIM! THINKING YOU CAN INVADE HIS MIND WITH CHEAP EROTIC FANTASIES, DIDN'T YOU?" and then collapsed to the floor.

The nurses rushed to pick him up and led him to a separate room. Maddie suddenly arose and asked what had happened. One nurse replied after five minutes that he was supposed to be catatonic. She told Maddie that he's not feeling quite himself and that Norman needed as much supervision as possible.

"You'd better leave, Miss, pretty erratic man," the nurse said.

"Alright," said Maddie.

As she was walking down the big brown hallway, Norman continued to eye her more, a dead panned expression as though he just got drugged with medication. Maddie cocked her head and replied, "I've got a spare room for you and you're more than welcome to it" and left the court house.

They led Norman into the white room Maddie herself had dwelled in before. The place was constricting and empty, sucking the life out of any person who stepped in. He of course did not have anyone else to support him. He hated himself so, everything and everyone who wronged him. He wanted to forget himself and just give into every dark impulse there was, to act and become something new, make a new identity.

_Insanity like the imagination knows no bounds_.

The illusion had become a reality as he hoped for, everything he ever dreamed of. If she told him to do something, it was for the best interest of their relationship. A son was always beholden to his mother. They would finally be one with each other forever, always on his mind. Oh, he had gotten to know his psychiatrist Dr. Richmond well too, but he at the same time seemed too disinterested and into himself to pay attention to his future patient's condition. What trust was there in people? Whom could he trust? The more he thought about it, the more the idea made him arch more repressively into his fantasy world. Norman gazed around feeling empty headed and immobilized partially by Sam's overbearing grip on his hands. Thinking about everything that had happened the past twenty four hours, his life would never be the same again...or should I say "her" life. In "her" head tumbled a side thought or two:

"It's sad when I mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn't allow to believe I would commit murder. They'll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man. As if I could do anything except just sit and stare like one of his stuffed birds. Well they know I can't even move a finger and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet just in case they do...suspect me. They're probably watching me. We'll let them, let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even gonna swat that fly. I hope they are watching. They'll see, they'll see and they'll know and they'll say. 'Why she wouldn't even harm a fly.'"

A triumphant satisfaction arose inside Norman. Colors of red and black flooded his mind. Her voice, her thoughts, were his. A plain picture of his mother transforming into the corpse he grew to love embraced him. She was here to stay and no one was going to take her away.

_"They're all a bunch of fools. Who's to say they can convict and lock me up? Probably best if that dark haired bitch would go. Make my life a whole lot easier. The things she's done, the hypocritical girl. Just like that short haired blonde from Los Angeles. Stubborn and hotheaded and...(suddenly slipping into his voice) So innocent and beautiful, how could I say that about Maddie."_

Maybe she was lost or misunderstood, like him. Maybe she just needed a friend, guidance, or a da-(suddenly he brushed those perverse thoughts away like a bolt of lightning).

_"OH NORMAN YOU ARE KIDDING YOURSELF STOP THINKING THOSE STUPID THOUGHTS!"_ screeched the impulsively grizzly feeble voice.

It seemed almost voice activated these responses would come. He was so into the part, there was no escape, too seductively comfortable with this new identity. A psychological gender switch. Born into a trap he could never get out of, maybe Maddie was too. She meant well that night, like Marion Crane, the cool blonde goddess he put trust into foolishly for a lost cause.

Outside the enclosed white room, two men walked out of the office leaving Sam and Lila to ponder the case.

"What do you think, sir?" asked Sheriff Chambers putting his hands inside enlarged pockets, "The boy's insane as insane can get."

"This is going to be a difficult case, I hope the asylum is prepared," remarked Dr. Richmond.

"And what about that other dark haired youth, the gang banger?" remarked the sheriff, "Finally figured who it was disrupting those poor citizens. Fairvale wasn't the only place Ms. Brink hit with her little friends. She had a habit of committing these atrocities at night, like Bates. Interesting how great minds think alike. If she got into the Mob, we'd have more trouble catching her."

"Yes, true, but I think she can be turned, much quicker, than Bates. I want her to work with me in the near future. As you and your wife know, her mother and I go way back and she told me it would be best if she was homeschooled for half the semester senior year and then set her up at a college for reformed young women criminals. She'll be as good as new, no trouble at all. Best of all it's out of state, so she'll be less likely to have impulse to return to the route of crime."

"I sure hope so. Young people these days are getting harder and harder to reach morally."

"I certainly agree with that."

"And Bates?"

"Well, let's just take it one day and therapy session at a time. But I wouldn't get your hopes up."

"Okay, let's have him spend the night here and we'll start a trial tomorrow for him. The reports and photographers are gonna get a splash out of this one."

"And the forty thousand dollars?"

"We need to give the trucksmen time to remove those cars from it. Oh and before I forget, you'll contact Ms. Crane's work to notify them of-?"

"Yes, of course, Doctor."

In the far room, where Norman was, he could, or should we say "Mother" could hear them, snickering. He shuffled his Brooks Brothers shoes about. Dr. Richmond emerged to see Norman, for Sheriff Chambers had not had much luck at communicating with him. Every pulse in his head was twitching. A fly kept buzzing around his right hand. He hated himself for reasons he knew and didn't know but the delusion was strong as ever, he wasn't going to give it up.

"Norman!" yelled Dr. Richmond.

"OH, IT'S YOU! DO YOU EVER STOP BOTHERING THE LIVING HELL OUT OF ME? I'm sure Norman wouldn't appreciate it," "she" screamed.

"We are going to have a trial for you, Norman."

"RIGHT. RIGHT. FINE."

The trial had proceeded bizarrely as people became both amused and afraid of the boy who spoke the words of some old hag. Each and every crime explained, things, he himself couldn't even believe, repressed for so long, but appearances had to be kept to keep them from taking Mother away. Of course these angry outbursts would get so violent, that he wouldn't be able to recall certain statements. Forgetfulness was always in his nature since he was a child.

_"We all go a little mad sometimes,"_ and smirked, _"They may have fooled me, but they would never fool my mother."_ The body guards led him to a truck that would drive Norman out to the Los Angeles Insane Asylum early in the morning. As he was still catatonic in the white room, Norman soon dozed off into an uncomfortable sleep dreaming of past crimes, showers, Mother, Marion Crane the week before, and Maddie as she transformed into a skylark bird, nuzzling and resting passively on his hand.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapt. 3 – Square 1

**January 1****st**** 1964 – Phoenix Cemetery 6pm **

"You have to let Marion go, Lila."

"Sam, don't tell me what to think or what to do," she snapped slapping his hand away as he tried to hug her.

Lila kept her gaze at her sister's tombstone for an hour straight.

"Look I know how tragic and horri-"

Lila turned around quickly, "Tragic and horrific? How can you say such words? Did you even love her? Care the world for her when you found out she was dead? Was she just another body for you in your erotic, esoteric escapades? That's right men just know when to love em' and leave em' and forget em'.'"

"Shut up. That's not what I was going to say."

"What then?" cried Lila, the tears came streaming down.

Sam had brought nothing to stop them.

"I was going to say that I was shocked she didn't just come to me that night she stayed at the Bates Motel. It was 15 mi away from me. How could she have missed me? Unless she had ended up having feelings for Norman instead, she did tell me she was thinking of cutting the relationship off jokingly. She could have at least called me that night so I could be sure we met up."

"How could she ever stand a chance with him?"

"She couldn't because he was so repressed by his mother. Defeated. But in a way, he always was. I sensed it. He was already dangerously disturbed, had been ever since his father died. I knew about his condition before Richmond made his so called "diagnosis" to us, it's not even half right. His mother just made things worse for him, not really taking into account the trauma of losing John Bates had on Norman."

"What do you mean 'dangerously disturbed,' like he was already crazy or ready to kill?"

"No. He wasn't crazy like a killer. He just would get these weird thoughts about his mother. How he wanted to deepen the relationship between the two of them, like those rare "encounters" were before. But they had only been 'intimate' three times he said. He soon began to have fantasies and dreams about her being a younger version of herself for him to marry. He told me he couldn't help it. Compulsively these images would come. But never to kill her or anyone. Or even to do things so traumatic he would blank out and forget them. And here's where the difference between Norman and Norma is, Lila. Mrs. Bates only told Norman to stay away from girls, because supposedly she thought she was the perfect woman for him, but never did she tell him to kill women. When Ms. Bates said that all women except her were worthless and disgusting, Norman secretly told me he thought that was total bullshit. But he kept appearances well at home because he didn't feel he had the strength to stand up against her. In high school, Norman told me that he sometimes would hear his father speaking to him and he would tell Norma that at night. She would scream at him to go away or beat him with a broom because she missed him too much. She told him she should be the only one to think about him not Norman. One incident, the third erotic encounter, amounted to something worse that sent Norma over the top."

"What was it?"

"Norman got her pregnant."

Lila's face became draught with sickness, "_She carried his baby_?"

"Briefly...sadly. Norman was excited as ever to be a father, whatever that meant. I just shook my head and just played along with him in his fantasies. Norma told him after three weeks she felt peculiar and sick, constantly throwing up. Once that stopped, Norman had a sneaking suspicion about his mother. '_I think she is_,' he said to me during a break in a class. Norman pressured her about it at home, but she denied it or even their 'encounter' ever happened. Delusional creature, my mother could never understand that household."

"This is too much for me to handle."

"Here's the worst, Lila. He wanted me to go out with him to a baby shop and start buying clothes and toys. I couldn't help but play along. After about a week, we got everything, without her noticing. We did this stuff at night. I would lie to my parents that I was doing homework with Norman. The spare bedroom at the top floor of the house would be the baby's. Norman offered to have me sleep over that night so we'd surprise Norma. She never ever approved of me, ever since she met me even though she thought the world of my father, though he hated her and her treatment of Norman. When Norma came into Norman's room we both surprised her with the decorations and new baby supplies. She was speechless and then began to smirk slightly. Norman asked what was the matter and she said this was a very last minute decision..._there will be no baby_. Norman's face radically changed to horror and unhinged sadness. The doctors had said that she was pregnant, even they felt disgusting for dealing with such an absent minded, reckless woman. They even challenged her parenting which she outright denied was borderline disordered and abusive. They said that the son is just as guilty. For her own sake, Norma decided to abort the child. After that night, Norman took a turn for the worst. He told me he'd talk with me soon. I knew that from here, there was no going back for Norman. I did the best I could to support him. I looked at the situation from both sides nonetheless. Norma may have unfairly aborted the child, but it was Norman's decision to get 'involved' and consent to Norma. Norman said terrified over the phone to me one night that he hadn't spoken with Norma for days. It seemed like she didn't take notice of his feelings. I said that maybe that's just her way of coping with the loss. I heard the phone slam."

"So, what exactly happened to him after? I mean it seems like he's uncomfortable with realizing that something was fundamentally wrong with him."

"Well, out of the blue, the phone rang one night, it was Norma. Why would a woman so pathologically jealous, for filling Norman's head with cheap ideas and escapades supposedly want to talk to a person like me?"

"Because some people are just like that, Sam."

"You can never truly get inside a person's head, Lila. You really can't no matter how hard you try, people are complex. She said that for the past two weeks, Norman was beginning to fly into these "rages." I asked what exactly they were. She couldn't explain them. I told her that Norman would never act that way. I had never seen Norman..."rage." He was last person ever to get extremely angry and vengeful at anyone, especially his own mother. Norma said that Norman whenever they disagreed on something lately, he would fly into these uncontrollable and unbearable fits. Constantly blaming her for everything in his life, everything he did was all on her and that Father would disapprove of her and wouldn't be sorry if she up and died the next day. She would cry her eyes out in her room and tell him to go away and never come back. But strangely, Norman would snap out of the 'rage' and apologize innocently as if nothing happened. This got Norma freaked out, big time...to fly into rages and then suddenly tune back to normal."

"Oh my gosh," Lila said gasping, but then became straight faced, "It all makes sense."

"Yes, that's when she decided it was enough and institutionalized him that end of sophomore year. She told me she couldn't take it anymore. She was convinced Norman was worse than she was. She had depended on him so much to be more of a husband than a son. Norman put up such a fit with the paramedics that they needed the police for support in case Norman hurt Norma."

"What did you do after you talk to her?"

"I did the cheesiest thing I would ever do in my life...visit him. It was the local sanatorium, the nearest from Fairvale. I asked the front desk if I could see Norman. At first the staff was apprehensive, but eventually let me pass when I told them I was a good friend of his. I found Norman in literally the first door on the first floor of the place. He was lying on his bed with a huge white fluffy blanket rapped around him, his expression dead panned. I called out his name and said it was me. He suddenly jumped out of his bed and grabbed me by my shirt and slammed me against the spotless titled walls of the room. 'WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME, SAM?' he cried both angry and neurotically into my shoulder. I told him I didn't know, but what about these 'rages?' Norman couldn't explain them, whenever him and his mother disagreed his vision would become cloudy and blurred and he would soon begin to spew things, awful things from his mind. Things that he too long kept hidden even from her. Of course he'd blame her for having him act this way. He was breaking my heart...my one true friend, where was the innocent, easy going, lanky kid I knew from middle school. I visited him off and on. It was a good three and a half weeks of counseling...Norma of course never came him, not even a letter or a reassurance that things would be better once he came home."

"It was end of your friendship?"

"No it wasn't. The institutionalization of Norman scarred him you can say forever. Things were just never the same between them again. Instead Norma coming to pick Norman up the sanatorium, I drove over and took over to my house to sleep over. I had never seen Norman more relaxed. He always got along really well with my parents, they even insinuated once that Norman should come and live with them. I'd have an unofficial brother in the house. Once he came home, he found Mrs. Bates with another man. This through Norman over the top when he phone me two nights later. He just wasn't the type to let things go, he began to think that Norma abandoned him for this man. He now was becoming too clingy over her, when it was the other way around before. I met the man, Chet Rudolph, he was still married, but he didn't care. I hated him because they were constantly making out, even in front of Norman and I. I could sense the rage coming back to Norman, but he pretty much kept it in check. But Norma fostered that relationship with her son, a foundation of distrust, not just of women, but with people in general. I'm not putting the blame solely on her, but it is your child and you set the tone for the relationship no matter what. Things just didn't go to plan I guess for the Bates family like they did the Loomis family. All I could do was be a close, extremely close and supportive friend."

"You couldn't ever help him? After their deaths?"

"That's what's puzzled me for a while. But would he have still come out the way he did after their deaths if someone intervened with him again. When Norma met Rudolph I knew it was going to hit Norman hard because it had just been the two of them and he had just gotten off therapy. Though I was his friend, his only friend, I was pretty much a bystander. He obsessed over perfection kind of like me. Everything perfect, no interference, no death like had claimed his father...nothing. But after institutionalization and coming home to Rudolph, Norman became more paranoid of his own abandonment from Norma, that he would never find enough woman like her despite the fact she abused him and he had tried to hurt her."

"That's crazy."

"It boggled my mind too as I began to see their relationship unfold as I got to know Norman better than I had ever known him...vengeful side. Norman loved her so much and hated her so much that he could not bear not to be the center of her attention or bear her desire for another man. But secretly he wanted to run away from her. Leave her forever. But yet he felt he had undying loyalty to her. She had been through so much in her life in losing John. Though Norman wouldn't be allowed to ask why she suddenly became so increasingly clinging after his death."

"You mean she wasn't like this before."

"Nope, from what I heard from other parents she was just overly protective of him as any parent would at first when he was just a child. She was a very nice lady while she was still married to John. But once he died, she began to get more attached to Norman. She lost John, she didn't want to lose Norman to the clutches of other people. And he just followed her along with it when he was little. It was out of love obviously but I think it was slowly beginning to evolve into just obsession and control. Once he hit middle school he was beginning to have some second doubts about her especially if he couldn't have a girl friend or go to dances. That's when she turned and not for the best Norman reasoned with me. The relationship became more and more claustrophobic than natural mother-son love."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe as with a single mother she got too anxious too afraid that she would lose him forever. That he would forget her after all she did for him. She would have nothing left. I always asked Norman why she was so clinging on him or what happened in her past besides John's death to make her that way. He told me he wasn't sure. He said his mother wasn't one to divulge her own weaknesses, only strengths."

"_Lose_ him?"

"If he got a girlfriend, she would never be able to control him anymore. Norman told me pathologically he believed she was jealous of him and that if he left she would be alone and fearful in the dark because his attention would be on other people, other women. She didn't hate people or women for that matter, she just wanted his focus to be on her than them, call it competition or mere excessive narcissism or delusion. She didn't want anyone influencing or taking her baby away. In a way she was kind of like Marion, doing everything drastic to get me to love her until it killed her in the end unfortunately, doing things HER way on HER own terms without consideration of my feelings or thoughts."

"This is too twisted."

"Yes, it is twisted. But Norma really believed she had nothing left except him. She wanted to replace John by using Norman as a surrogate lover. Believe me my own mother was heartbroken seven years ago when my father passed away but she never "used" me to that extent. That wasn't our relationship for any mother and son. I think the world of my mother. I think Norman was somewhat troubled because he never got equal doses of a father and mother figure in his life while I did. Too much one parent can be a bit of crisis, what do you do to make up for the other missing? In a way he somewhat resented me that I was how should I put it 'stable.' _Achieved something_, he thought, he truly believed he could never be like me, physically, emotionally, and of course sexually confident. I always discouraged him from thinking like that. As his best friend, I told him that we both are equals and work as a team. I promised him when we each started school, his senior year in high school to my college freshman year that he would break free and go away and make another life for himself. He could even attend the same college as me."

"You must have been the only one who'd ever do that for him."

"I was practically. He was always shy around people because his mother always wanted him home and he feared that if he disobeyed her she would never speak to him again. I kept him sane as long I was around him. Even encouraged him to go on secret dates with girls. It was his idea to go drinking underage even! Oh we never got drunk but still! Even if it was just a goodbye kiss or a double date out to dinner, I was so proud of him that he got away from Norma for those select times. She thought me coming over to the house was solely for play dates as we promised. Norman got a kick out of me covering for him, but I knew sooner or later he would have to put more confidence in himself. He knew it too and eventually began to put it to practice if she ever knew he was secretly double dating with me."

"What about 'intimacy'?"

"He was still a bit nervous around girls. He always said he should wait until marriage in having sex, but secretly I knew this code to be his mother disapproving. He always thought that girls would just cheat behind his back and was always unsure of how to approach them. Whores and scum bags supposedly so Norma told him and always wanted to psychologically reign him back to her. Not that he believed that bullcrap she told him about women, but he just didn't want to betray her. She pathologically believed that she was the only perfect woman for him. I told him that's a bunch of baloney and there must have been a deeper reason for saying that pack of lies to him. He paused at me and we didn't speak for a week, from then on I knew when to shut up and what his limits were. But I knew that she was poisoning his mind. You can say he felt it too, but he just didn't want to betray her after all they went through, it was almost as if he was playing along to her, even if he didn't want to, he felt he had no choice but to be brainwashed. As a side note, Norman always asked me for Playboy magazines against her wishes obviously reading them before he went to bed at night. It was his version of subtle rebellion."

"But I won't forgive him for what he did to Marion! How could he?"

"He was delusional and lost by that point. He thought that by "bringing her back" in his own imagination he repair things between them, create his own version of his mother being loyal to him and him to her, when that wasn't the reality in the end...she was a dishonest and insecure woman, imperfect like us all. Fantasies are stupid I've realized. He was guilt ridden and did everything possible to bring her back. To the extent to dress up and act like her, speak for the body like she was alive though he was just improvising his own thoughts about what he assumed she would say about him, crazy right? Even denying her death, he was becoming more and more insane and obsessed almost like he never wanted to be Norman Bates anymore, only her to show his love and devotion, to truly be one with her, to love her again, to say _I'm sorry and I want to start this over again, to love him like any mother would_. But I think the illusion he was fostering within himself got carried away and so he began listening to it, it giving him orders no matter what even though his real mother would never let him do any such thing to women. It's was HIS version of his mother in his mind, his fantasy not reality, that brought him to this moment in his life. Ignoring all the good, healthy times they had together before she turned for the worst. Subconsciously if the illusion was threatened it would tell him to kill, though she was a corpse, he's have no choice but to act out what he assumed to be her jealousy. He would act like her to kill the women like Marion that he desired and then blamed her instead of him in the end. I guess after repeating a behavior or train of thoughts for so long, he finally convinced himself he was her, as per our dealings with him that day. His mind just snapped, I couldn't get through to him anymore. You have to foster a lot of self-hate to do that to yourself, a mental death you can say. You can't bring back the dead. He just wanted to escape the blame so he could hold onto his Mother, immerse himself into fantasies, and "protect" her from anyone else who intruded on them. He was actually just protecting himself in the end, no escaping that trap."

"Do you now understand what we have to do? What I want to do?"

"You want to kill him?"

Lila went silent and look around the cemetery. Sam suddenly grabbed her and turned her around, "TELL ME! NOW!"

"No."

"Good. He may have been my friend once and went off into a dark path, but I don't want to lose YOU. You don't have to act like him to show your devotion to Marion and don't harbor revenge against him or else you are going to get hurt."

Lila had backed off and ran to the car. Sam had stalked behind her quickly.

"What have you now become like a psychopath sympathizer, Sam?"

"No I haven't. I haven't. It's just..."

"What?"

"It's just that, Norman isn't well. Deep inside, no matter how psychotic he becomes, behind that mask, he's still that scared, lost boy I knew from school, all the time. You can say it was his mother's fault for fostering this insecurity, hatred and doubt in him, but at this point in his life he sunk himself deeper than even his mother could comprehend were she alive. The blood on anyone's hands doesn't go away that easily. He's never had confidence or anyone to tell him, _yes you can do this_ or _you can trust me on this one_. I can't let him down...yet."

"You think there is HOPE for him? You must be as crazy as he is."

"Not hope, he just needs guidance. Lots of it...this time, from me."

"That's ludicrous, Sam. Some people can't be saved."

"I know that. I'm just thinking about, I have been for a while ever since the two of us nearly missed each other that night I came looking for Arbogast. As I was getting into my truck, I thought I could see a shadowy silhouette of an old woman with a butcher knife. I knew who it was immediately by the bird-like stature of this figure...Norman wasn't fooling anyone, not even a name change could mask that. The figure had the knife trembling in its hand. I paused for a moment horrified of what had become of my friend. He shouted in that feeble voice "_YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN TO COME OUT AT WEE HOURS, BOY! GET OFF MY PROPERTY_." He was doing a poor job at impersonating his mother, was it even his mother? I put my hands on my hips and told him _to kill me, "old woman."_ I told him _he was perfectly capable, just try it, see if I wince_. He was snarling and ran over maniacally at the office entrance where I stood. The knife was at my face, I was still fearless. His eyes were angry and blood shot, yet they were frightened, oh so frightened and glassy like he was about to cry. He would have failed his mother in letting me "intrude" on them. I'd get to her and hurt her secret agent. He had to protect her. I stared at him like I was staring into his soul and slowly he lowered the knife and removed the dress and wig. "IT WASN'T ME! MOTHER WANTED ME TO HAVE YOU KILLED! I HAD TO FOLLOW THROUGH WITH IT! OH PLEASE, SAM, IT'S BEEN SO LONG! DON'T DO THIS TO ME AND DON'T TAKE HER AWAY!" _Goodbye, Norman_ I said and got in the car and left him."

"You lied to me that night saying that you never saw the mother or Bates."

"I didn't have any idea about the corpse, just Norman. I thought he was just acting up. I knew that if news got about him the whole town would be in uproar. I finally drew my own conclusions about those seven disappearances, especially those two young girls and Marion, but I didn't want to believe it was murder out there, not Norman after all this time, certainly not him that potentially killed his mother and her lover. I knew he was jealous of Rudolph but never to kill him or Norma. But after that night, I just wasn't sure anymore and wanted to come back a second day."

"It was shameful of you do that to me. He nearly killed me that day, how could you?"

"In a way, I still wanted to protect him. I thought he was still innocent and had gone through enough almost like I wanted to somehow make it up to him for cutting him off after ten years. Once Arbogast disappeared I knew that I should be the one to go out there and bust in on Norman. Things were just so perverse and obscure out there. I felt that this time we would be able to see each other again and talk more like long lost brothers that day you and I signed into the motel."

"But why was he so "off" about meeting you?"

"Because he was afraid of me. Still after all these years. Of what I wanted do to him for what he done. I think he secretly knew I was lying about you and I being a couple, but he still wanted my company. But once it came to talking about his mother he got defensive and well, you get my point. I was shocked as ever to see the corpse, but I had to defend you from Norman. There was no helping him after that. I mean that I didn't know things got _that_ complicated after Norma got involved with Chet. I thought I knew Norman completely...I didn't know he would take the affair that seriously. It could have been a fresh start for them. A father figure in his life which I sorta provided for him, more like brother if you ask me. Maybe Norma was trying to change after years of the abuse in providing Norman stabilization and a father figure. It broke Norman's heart. You can say it made Norma look like an utter hypocrite. At least I was in the process of divorcing my wife as I was involved gradually with Marion before things got ugly, but you can say that Marion interrupted us. She was so persuasive and attractive I couldn't refuse and my wife was already cheating on me the year before Marion and I met. Norman didn't know what to make of the affair at first, everything she taught him about having a relationship outside of the house, going to bars, about other women being distrustful and cheap. I told Norman that hate and dishonesty only exist in women like Norma, in anybody really, but Norman didn't want to believe it. Not his own mother who told him he could trust her...no one else but her. HER WORD. HER WAYS, no matter the abuse."

"Well, you remember what Arbogast said about doubting people who are the most honest."

"I know Norman hated Norma for what she did to him in depriving him, but for him to backfire and destroy her life out of jealousy was completely out of the blue for me. In a way I kind of wasn't sorry when they incarcerated him. The time was ticking and both of us knew that the gig was up. In his mind, he failed her so much so that he convinced himself he was her. There was no going back. I knew he wanted to lash out at me, kill me for exposing his crimes and you can say his mother. But I had duties to find Marion and help you. You both are my friends and I wouldn't let anyone hurt you girls, even if it meant going against my best friend."

"I can't believe you still think that you can strike friendship with Bates again. He probably won't remember you because he's adopted a new persona. From you to Marion, he wants to forget everything. He'll never change, no matter how much therapy Los Angeles Insane Asylum is giving him. It's a waste in tax payer dollars. Good thing we both don't live there support criminals like him."

"I just want to keep this down low, Lila. I'm still just as frustrated and betrayed as you are over this guy. I need to think of a way to approach him, to reason with him...yeah it sounds stupid, to trust women most of all, and to learn TRUST period. If he can at all. He has to have faith in himself, I know he can, I've seen some of his genius shining moments before he went insane. He's a nice guy and he's fun to hang around, but he's had just bad things happened to, things within and beyond his control. He needs to reconcile with his past and recognize his mother for what she was to him, the good and the bad. He has to learn to love himself most of all."

"No matter how much it hurts. But criminal minds are wired differently. He knows nothing."

Sam starred at Lila and gripped her arms firmly, "Nothing is a whole lot of something, Lila, think about it," he said leading her inside his car back to Fairvale.

**February 23****rd**** 1964 – Maddie's Apartment, Los Angeles 10am**

"Just put it on! I bought it especially for you."

The young man attempted to pull a medium sized dark green turtleneck over his white collared shirt, "Honey, why do you want me to wear all this? It's so conservative looking, too formal. We are just going out for coffee."

"Because...lots of guys wear their shirts like that. You look especially hot in that. The tight ones bring out your shoulders and lean figure."

"Baby I'm anything but hot. But I'm keeping my hair to that distressed Elvis Presley look, okay? Because if Elvis gets girls with it, then so can I. I'm so excited to see Viva Las Vegas, Goldeneye, and Mary Poppins in the summer. Crew-cuts suck."

"So much constructive criticism, guy!"

"I think you are beginning to go Hitchcock-Vertigo wardrobe on me!"

"Man, first and foremost, nobody can be that over the top _insane_ with love. Do you think after watching that garbage I believe that? The movie was too frickin' long anyway, they could have cut down on some parts. Like we all know Jimmy Stewart was a total fool to fall for that duplicitous, two-faced slut and you and I knew comically she was gonna die in the end by the time the first wife died. Where was the suspense? What was the surprise? Just all these scenes of GAZING at your desired love toy, that's borderline porn in my opinion. Half the time I felt like I was gonna jump into that screen and murder the two leads. It's not a movie about true love, but obsession. Obsession and love are two completely separate things. Also being a voyeur is CREEPAY AND CRAY CRAY."

"Yeah I mean NEVER tell a person directly you love them, makes you look like an idiot."

"Don't stalk them too much either. Passive glances not gazes. Number two, are you kidding me? Telling you to wear the same clothing of some jerk I used to know? Please!"

"Whoa! Don't get steamy. I get it, you HATE the movie. And you know what you didn't need the gang life in the end. It just brought you more heartache and isolation."

"As much as I don't like to say it, you're right about that one."

"But..."

"But what?"

"Do you remember who _he_ is?"

"Who?"

"This other boy you've been thinking about."

"I told you before, I don't remember him. I've been face to face with dozens of hapless, attention whoring tools from many towns."

"Nothing at all about him?"

"_No_...I can't remember his face or his name."

"Then why is it, I heard these past few weeks from your neighbors that they've been hearing from your room scream loudly this one guy's name?"

"Name?"

"Yeah, name. You sounded scared by him for when they told me."

"Wait I think I can get it...Nnnnnate?

The young man folded his arms and shook his head as Maddie persisted, "Nicholas... Norbert...Nathan? Ahhhhhhh...darn it."

"Norman."

"Norman?"

"Yeah, what about him?"

"I don't know," she said jittery.

They were all just empty pictures in her mind of every bachelor or victim she came across. What was so different about this one?

"Whatever you say, Mad, because I swear if he comes back and lays a hand on you...well (tensing his fists) you get my point," Tobias "Toby" Turner mused and lazily crashed onto her couch laying down, putting his long arms under his back.

"Look it was probably just a dream I had about a man named Norman. _Not a Norman I met in real life,_ silly."

"Okay, I get it."

Maddie became cross-eyed, how did that name ring a bell? What was his last name anyway? She tried to think back to when the flashback occurred. At some obscure point over four years ago. Yes, she supposed there was one man that stuck out in her memory. A shy, endearing young man who meant well in tending for her needs one night. She wanted him and he wanted her, _but he'd never tell_ she reasoned. But he had tried to hurt her, but how and why she could not remember...that fateful night she saw his face. But it was all a blur to her as she tried to forge ahead, repress old conflicts, and create a new life for herself. She was more than just a gang-banger or Mafiosa in training, she was:

_A young woman presented with great opportunities to step forward and make a difference in the world _said Dr. Richmond.

Though everyone knew of her at college, Maddie managed to attain high grades, yet remained somewhat of a loner, you can say on her own accord. No one could possibly understand her or her life mistakes though the other girls had their own destructive pasts. Some even worse than hers. Her parents, so desperate, so heartbroken with their baby. When socialization didn't work as well, her father had pushed her into the field of psychology and nursing specifically in tending to former convicts to help her reason better.

_To gain a perspective into another's suffering_ in the words of Dr. Richmond to her mother.

Her parents selected the Los Angeles Insane Asylum, the institution dedicated to the criminally insane because the other positions at regular sanatoriums were already filled up. Maddie at first was a bit apprehensive about the decision, but her parents had reassured her to stick with the nurses and just follow procedure. Each patient is an individual person who has put their trust in her and bunch of others whether they want to or not. Most importantly, DON'T GET INVOLVED WITH PATIENTS. Plain and simple common sense. She is there to help them become "cured" and reenter society as new people just like her. Her parents sat in the conference room at the Oregon Reformed Women Criminals College with Dr. Richmond and a social worker, Mrs. Candice in her junior year setting up her future schedule:

_**May 5**__**th**__** 1962 **_

"_The girl is obviously troubled. She needs an outlet. I know I've asked you both this before but have you checked on her drug habits?" asked Richmond. _

"_No we never knew about them," her father said. _

"_I believe your word. Young people at times tend to be so secret of their lives I've been noticing it increasingly especially among young men criminals in gang related activity." _

"_What can we do?" asked her mother tearing up, trusting Richmond since they met in college, good friends in all their elective classes. _

"_Whatever is going to give her the most direction. When I talked to her she was very emotionally sensitive about you both finding out about her acts. Especially, those young men she incidentally put to jail. Do you know how long it takes some courts to find certain men innocent after a time? From what I've heard she used a different alias for herself to avoid the cops. She would be gone the next day and the men wouldn't have any alibi. Tax payer dollars and family tears. No remorse on her part, she just brushed it off," Mrs. Candice said. _

"_But she confessed didn't she?" asked her father standing upright in his chair. _

"_Yes, she did. She threw a bit of a tantrum with Richmond and I. She was apprehensive about disclosing details about this "Chaperone,'" Mrs. Candice answered begrudgingly. _

"_The Chaperone?" asked her mother using a tissue for her eyes. _

"_Yes." _

"_The Chaperone as far as we know is locked up now. So he's no longer an influence on Maddie or a threat to society. I heard from Sheriff Chambers that he and his "family" are separated into different state prisons. Their influence minimized as far as we know and the police are under a full investigation state wide for the Chaperone's other men," her father reported. _

"_You never told me that, honey. Oh thank heaven," her mother remarked very much relieved. _

"_Maddie all this time was being coached by the Chaperone as well as his other members to be a part of the "family." But...well, once Norman Bates was jailed, then the police began to revamp their criminal investigations among remote parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon. These were areas the "family" used primarily as their "sanctuary" you can say. News spreads like wild fire and policies had to change," the social worker answered. _

"_Maddie has to be watched and heavily monitored. I've hired assistant Hayden Cummings to look after her. Think of her as a "sister" figure or pen-pal for your daughter. She's a late graduate of the college and has been working at the asylum for eight years. Maddie needs it, as an amateur like herself, I'm sensing. She needs to step back and realize that she must grow up and become a respectable young woman and citizen," Richmond interjected. _

"_She'll do fine. It's taken her a few years to get herself straight. She has been tempted several times to pick up joints. Those malicious gang-bangers keep tempting her, some are secretly members of the Chaperone's "family." She tells me that her head swells up and she begins to shake when she sees them and automatically thinks joint smoking will cure her. Joints would be her sole escape. Repulsion-Attraction if you will she calls it. She tells me that she sees nothing improving in her life after she graduates," her mother explained. _

"_Ah, there are criminals that I've worked with that have those same conditions. It's taken them many years to make a full recovery. She just needs to stay away from it. Substitute something else, she might be using those thoughts as replacement for her own self-confidence. Just discourage it, make new memories, and help her think of positive things," said Richmond. _

"_She's getting better and better at controlling it. She's just always acted on instinct and impulse. She's so ambitious, so anxious to do the right thing, that she almost lost her sense of self," her father answered. _

"_Well, you both should always do what's best for your daughter first and foremost. I am happy with her progress and she'll pull through. We all have to."_

"_Thank you, Richmond and Mrs. Candice," her parents said shaking their hands. _

Maddie and Toby sat down on a bench drinking coffee and listened to birds chirping overheard. As Toby put his arm around Maddie, she laid out on his lap and looked up at his face. He then put his coffee down on the ground and touched his forehead to hers. They shared a long drawn out kiss, then sunk his face into her chest.

"What am I gonna do with you?" he asked, his statement seemed almost missed as Maddie breathed in heavily.

Wrapping her arms around his long neck and brushing her mouth against his, "Anything you want now."

"Okay," he smiled, and he caressed his cheek to hers; she caressed her cheek to his.

Maddie playful began to toy with his brownish, blonde locks, while he laid back on the bench, her crawling ever so slightly on top of his body. They continued kissing until they began to hear whispers. Words like _dignity_ and _respectability_ went in and out of their ears.

"You know-"

"You know what, Mad?" asked Toby still stroking her back, brushing his lips against hers.

"We should go back to the room...to do _this_," Maddie suggested, a smirk developing on the side of her mouth.

Opening his eyes, "Maddie, you know I don't want to do that yet," Toby said raising his eyebrows.

"You are so into playing "Hard to Get," it's ridiculous. Wait until our wedding night? But its sooooo far away!" exclaimed Maddie.

"No it isn't far. Remember we do stuff to a limit just like we promised. We both said we weren't ready for that next step, _you_ actually told me that first. I didn't have to say a word. Anticipation and suspense are key!"

"You are such a loser! I secretly used protection the nights while I was with bachelors around your age before the pill became popular!"

"That was uncalled for," said Toby disgustfully and began to push her away.

"Well I did!"

"But you are past that now, aren't you? Or do we need to take you to Richmond?"

"No we don't."

"Then we don't need to think about those other guys, do we?"

"Nope. Not a zilch."

"Good then."

"Man, you like saved my life, Toby."

"No, I didn't. You decided to pursue me. _I_ was worse off before I met you."

"You did save me, don't lie! If it weren't for you, I'd be still on the sidelines possibly smoking joints day in and day out to fill the time, not pass it. Yeah I mean I would have gotten someplace or some job, but like everything else after, it seems empty if you don't have anyone to share your success or self-improvement with."

"You sound like such a woman, Maddie, it's nauseating,"

"_Oh I'm sorry, did I just slip myself?" _

"You think you needed help? I was in the dumps!"

"You were more messed up in a different matter than me."

"That chapter of my life was sheer embarrassment which we will never talk about again."

"Debora and Constance?"

"NOPE! Mad, do not start with me on them!"

"I'm just playing. Look let's just go back to your place. Tonight is like our last night before we each start work tomorrow."

"Don't forget what special day is tomorrow!"

"My sweet little boy's 30th birthday...man you're old! And my 23rd! No wrinkles on me, haha."

"Little Boy and 30 sound paradoxical don't they now. You know my skin well. If I smoked maybe I'd look a bit decrepit," Toby chuckled and they began to jokingly push each other.

"And you haven't even been married once yet!?" asked Maddie.

"Tsh, don't remind me," said Toby rolling his sleeves half way, "All of my other friends are happily married, one just got divorced though, but he kind of had it coming."

"We won't though, let's just go now, back to your place. Seriously how do you get such rates on such a luxurious studio?"

"Cause my watch making business I just set up with my peeps within this town is in the center. Anybody who'd broken something accidentally or needs a tune is easy money. In other words, my passion, babe."

"That's true."

"And besides it's not that far away from the asylum either. I made sure of it."

"Yaaaaaaayyyy. You be talkin' my lingo. Sneak up on a kiss or two during lunch hours. I've heard the cafeteria is so bland looking from classmates. We can find a more suitable place to _laze_ around?"

"_Maybe_," Toby smiled almost child-like and Maddie jumped into his arms.

"Oh, Toby let's get married!"

They walked side by side back to Toby's apartment, with arms around their wastes. When they reached his apartment stairs, they embraced each other firmly. Whispering in her ear her fiancé elaborated, "Maddie, we have to learn patience. I know we both love each other, but everything comes in steps. I don't want to repeat the mistakes in my life by taking things too quickly. We have to think rationally. I'm thinking about me, but I'm thinking about what's best for you most of all. We got just got engaged two months ago. The wedding isn't until..."

"Ah, July 4th 1964, I get it, you aren't my frickin' father!"

Still impatient, Toby pressed an intense kiss to Maddie's neck. It made her tingle all over and shut her eyes for a second and he answered with his hazel eyes staring into her head, "Just try to keep your head above water, Mad."

The way he said her name always sent happy shivers down her spine, almost like the sound of it encapsulated her personality, so reserved, sensitive and free-spirited. His hands though long and narrow were warm, like touching them could away years of pain and anxiety.

"I love you so much," he said holding her head between his hands, "I want this to work."

_Just stay a little longer with me, let the moment proceed on. Let me fall asleep with you, let me massage your hair, hold you tight in my arms, your head resting against my breast_, she thought.

Both of them still holding hands, "Look we can see each other as much as we want tomorrow. Promise?" Toby proposed.

"But what if I completely miss something? What if I say something wrong to the patient after all the training I did at college? Those hours shadowing at other places?" Maddie asked nervously.

"You're going to do fine. Besides if something unusual happens just call a backup nurse, the orderlies, the psychiatrist, or security. Best of all the key is to not get attached to the patients emotionally and physically speaking."

"Doooy. Captain Obvious speaking here!"

"You have your parents not too far away and me most of all."

"Alriiiiiiight, goodnight, babydoll," Maddie cooed and both kissed each other for a solid minute before pulling away at the invisible fabric keeping them together.

"Goodnight and _here's to you, kid_," said Toby in a Humphrey Bogart voice.

He leaned up against the cemented wall of the stairs leading up to his apartment. He watched her leave. The way she walked even the sound of her voice was so therapeutic to him after a day of work and friends. The swing of her hips, her petite blue dress, her piercing brown eyes, and her mouth parting softly after each word or sentence. He shrugged his shoulders, letting his shirt fall out a bit over his brown belt buckle. He turned around the bend and ran up the stairs toward his studio. The place was very quaint with a Salvador Dali painting and Jackson Pollack on each side. Marble and granite counter tops were a plus with hanging triangle lamps. A body length window pane led to an outdoor balcony. As Toby locked the navy door behind him, he took a deep breath and sighed slouching his head down between his thin square shoulders. Running his hand through his wavy hair.

_What the hell I am doing to do with this kid? Driving me crazy. _He thought jokingly, _Dinner time_._ Maybe I should call one of the guys to see if their interested in coming over_.

But Toby opted to stay in for the night alone for he'd see his friends tomorrow at the store. They were his "true, blue" friends that he made those wonderful, special times at college. Pleasant and happy days that he wished he could relive with them.

_For everyone has to grow up and move on from such light hearted experiences_ he remembered his mother saying that to him, when he was little, tucking him in bed every night.

_Yeah I know, mom, I know, _he thought pouring spoonfuls of macaroni into a pot.

Spending his whole childhood in Philadelphia, things were so certain and so timely that he could think, everything planned, no chaos. Time was always such a concern for him ever since he was five. From the early days of seeing his own father look at his pocket watch from time to time. The roundness, the visualization, the mechanics, and sounds amazed him. Toby thought about his father very much some days when there was no one else to talk to or listen. The macaroni and cheese was ready and he turned on the TV to see exciting items on screen. Showering and changing into a wife beater, long gray socks, and boxers he laid down convalescing on the coach tuning in to various advertisements, music venues, and of course some old 1940s movies.

"Ah! _Father of the Bride_ is playing tomorrow at a local theater house. Need to tell Mad that one. One of my favorites...And those screaming girls are ruining my liking for those four weird haired boys, the Bagels, the Boogees, The Beach Boys, no! THE BEATLES! I definitely will not come to their concerts for that (still viewing their faces on screen) Hahaha, Maddie always told me that teeny boppers bug her the heck," he said outloud recalling something she said a few days ago to him.

"_The next time another boy band becomes popular I'm gonna frickin' beat those girls to a pulp just so I can hear this raucous music. They are into them just because they look sexy. Screams drown out the music from their guitars and that's no fun. Let me tell you something girls, they ain't sexy, this man lying next to me is sexy. They are schoolboys than men. You are like the sexiest, honest man I know, Tob. You can totally outsex The Beatles if more women knew about you_."

"_Women freak me out sometimes."_

"_Why? Are you woman hater?" _

"_Babe, I'm no woman hater. It's just that you women tend to be so clingy, so emotionally unpredictable in ways you can't even imagine!" _

"_That's so crazy. Men are the same too. You guys are like born from us! I'm like the least aggressive female you will ever know." _

"_Trust me I unfortunately know too well."_

Toby immediately turned off the TV and decided to tap dance his way to his bed. He opened up the shades a bit to see the crescent moon shine flooding into his room. He briefly glanced at hanging pictures of himself as a baby, toddler, and pre-teen on the walls of his room. Looking at himself in the mirror, his cheekbones articulated in the moonlight. He could perfectly see the blonde highlights in his dark brown hair. With both hands on the biro he picked up a portrait of his parents.

"Okay, status update guys. You are gonna be soooo frickin' proud of me, Father. Everything you ever wanted for me. Oh and you'd love Maddie too like a daughter, Mother, don't forget that! Anyway, I guess I'll see you both tomorrow like always, well not physically hahaha, but you get what I mean. Love you."

Toby kissed the portrait and put it beside a Ralph Lauren cologne bottle at the bottom of the mirror.

_I want this to work out_ he thought, _it has to. I don't want last time to repeat itself. She's not like them. Oh, I don't know._

As adventurous and energetic he was, there was always a lingering sensitivity and gullibility that interwove around him. Jumping back onto the queen sized bed Toby gazed forlorn at the second pillow beside him, covered in the moonlight, and could almost visualize her there. Stroking his face, arms in a casual embrace, and eventually her unbuttoning his white blouse, he soon closed his eyes...

**Same day – 3am Los Angeles Insane Asylum **

The lightening cackled against the cell walls of the patient's room. The place was almost like a second home for him for he knew no other with its blue plaster walls so bland looking he requested two paintings to be hung in it. Cabinets and a personal bathroom were "awarded" to special criminally insane patients. The closet housed three to five separate outfits and two sets of shoes for patients to wear everyday. A bench and twin sized bed were given to each patient in this wing of Los Angeles Insane Asylum. No one really knew how long each would stay from intensive care to one unit, shipment of one patient to another to a different hospice, or final release. Leading most certainly to employment of some kind to get lives back in order. Some patients became revolving doors again and rescinded into old habits spending tax payer dollars and time, energy, medicine, and patience.

The silent sound of rain woke Norman Bates from an uneasy sleep. There were some nights he never slept, some nights he'd hear voices, memories of people he forgot.

_Marion Crane must die. _

_ No, I don't want to. She was so kind to me, please Mother..._

_ Kindness can't be returned with filth and dirt. _

_ Mother..._

_ Do it!_

_No. _

_I can't do this alone you know that well, Norman. I've always depended on you. If you refuse one more time, like we always said, I'll never speak you again. You want me to leave you in the dark, boy? You always were scared of the dark you know, don't deny it. I know._

_ NO!_

_ Who do you love more than anyone? _

_ He points at her. _

_ That's right. _

_ The shower curtain flails open. He raised the knife, sees her scream, closes his eyes, tries to dream that he is not there, his arm is numb yet compulsive to keep on stabbing. He lets the girl grab his arm, he doesn't want to continue. Yet the stabbing continues in the end. How easy it all came back and quickly left the bathroom without a glance at the damage. _

_ Oh GOD! Mother! Blood! Blood!_

Norman suddenly tumbled out of bed, slamming onto the carpeted floor. Clutching the white sheets, he began weeping and buried his head in the sheets.

_You hear me, boy? _

Norman suddenly picked up his head startled.

_It was never me. You know it. I never made you do anything. Fess up, idiot. You did it. You killed me. You killed them all. _

_No! No! You made me do it! It was you! How could this happen? _

_Oh have an open mind, if you have one! _

_Shut up. _

_Listen to your elders, boy, no matter how hard you try to block me out, and know this, boy...I've seen you try it, you will never get rid of me. _

Norman ran over to the mirror, but it was foggy and distorted for he was always lazy to wipe things up in his room.

"You aren't so powerful as you used to be anyway before you passed on," he said as the pulses in his head began to calm down.

There was complete silence from the room. Mother was silent.

"Mother? MOTHER! No! You can't do this all I wanted was you! All I ever needed was you!" 

Norman ran across the room and looked out the small slide open in the door which looked out on the corridors. The place looked like a ghost town or one of those haunted houses you visit on Halloween. The reflections of light off the walls glimmered an eerie electric aura. Reminding him time and again of mentally incompetent patients who were taken for ECT [it was the only option left at the end of the day even if it left you a bit haggard]. Luckily, he had been making enough progress in controlling impulses to veer away from ECT. The future was so unknown for him.

"Oh, the guard's out for the night. Chapman will probably be in in about 20 min."

The rain started to pour harder on his window as the outsides became increasingly blurry. Norman sighed and walked toward a cement bench stationed on the other side of his bed. He laid back though he knew it would be uncomfortable for his back, it didn't matter for the moment.

"There must be something I can do to get rid of her. Maybe something I have to propose to Richmond. It's there, it's at the tip of my tongue. But what?"

Moving his hand through his dark hair, he looked out toward the window.

"Nothing is going to help. The nurses have been nice to me here and reassure me I'll be fine. There have still been episodes of mine, no hers. But...oh, what's the use?" he exclaimed, laying back and hit his head hard on the bench.

"Son of a-"

_Watch your mouth, boy. _

SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

Norman ran over to the window, praying for any visibility to come of the night, any faces he could see in the dark. Patients usually snuck out mysteriously after hours in the enlarged backyard/garden.

"Forget it. Let's just look forward to tomorrow. Another therapy session, another medication to try. Why does progress have to be so slow?"

They got him to phase out of the manic persona he so obsessed over that made his mind snap. There was no pretending. As he grew more and more detached from her, the hold and unpredictability of her presence would increase. He made his night shirt looser around his waist and jumped in bed. On and off he would have dreams about people, women he encountered at each and every motel visit. 1950, a year after that fateful night. One young girl, around 16 years old said that she was meeting her parents. They were going to meet her at the motel. They were heading out on a vacation to Las Vegas.

_That's interesting_ he replies.

_Yeah, it is. I can't wait!_ The girl, Crystal says.

_You have nice handwriting. Wish I practiced more like you. _

_ Oh you don't have to worry. _

_ He chuckles. _

_ You laugh kind of funny, what's with your stutter? _

_ Well, um...when you live out here for a while, I guess you kinda develop your own...ah- mannerisms. No one stops here much. _

_ Aw, why not? _

_ I can't talk about it. _

_That's alright. I mean they are starting plans to build a new highway soon, I don't how it's gonna effect you at all. _

_It might affect me to some degree, but we shall see, kid. _

_ Optimism is my specialty, my friends always say that at my school. Do you hang out with peeps? _

He pauses, his mother reappears in his mind and mocks him at a distance, _"Well, uh, a boy's best friend is his mother."_

_Crystal was taken aback, he's said something to hurt her. Oops he thought. _

_ I'm sorry, things have just been hard on the two of us since my stepfather died. _

_ I see. Thanks for clarifying, Mr. Bates. _

_ Norman. _

_ Norman, what you need is some excitement in your life. _

_ Excitement? What you do mean? _

_Crystal walks over from her seat in the parlour and behind Norman and begins to massage his shoulders. _

_You know, you're kinda cute,_ _she purrs in his ear._

_The sensation was terrifying, yet there was enthusiasm behind his anxiety. He could feel the sweat beginning to well up on his forehead. It was true he sort of had feelings for her, the poor kid. With her curly blonde hair and petite figure and checkered dress. She begins to pull him from his wrists and into the room he assigned her in. She positions herself on the bed and begins to undress in front of him. His brown eyes widening at the marvelous sight. If Mother ever knew what he was looking at, he would-no SHE would have her way with the girl. What was so attractive about him anyway? He was child-like and shy. Hardly characteristics for guys she would be probably into. Was she just using him for being pathetic? She spread herself with only her underwear on. _

_"Come on, Norman. My mother and father won't mind...MUCH," she tilted her head smirking at him. _

_ "Ah-AH-Ah-I-I-I'm feeling a little sick. I need some air to think about it-yeah," he giggled and left the room. _

_ The girl was left waiting for her beau to return. _

_ "Man, I was this close, better go." _

_ He could hear her outside the Cabin 8 door. As she swung the door open, the scream was all he heard before the knife plunge. _


	4. Chapter 4

Chapt. 4 – Mirror Image

February 24th 1964 - The Los Angeles Insane Asylum – 8am

Piano music began to play down the hall from where the intensive care patients slept. Gradually, nurses and assistants gathered their keys to the rooms to wake them for the day. Therapy sessions, field days, conferences with high profile psychologists and psychiatrists, drug and pill exchange, the usual routine for all patients or should we call them "inmates," they nicknamed themselves. The sun shone brightly in Norman's room as dew drops formed on the screening of the barred window.

Sitting up in bed, his dark hair all ruffled into a distressed do, "What a dream...aw, no more saliva! I thought I got rid of that habit when I was 13."

He knew it was going to be the same routine again and again. Supposedly he was told he had Depersonalization Disorder, comorbid with Schizophrenia and Amnesia after two years of testing and trial and error when he was first brought. They diagnosed him saying that in the murders he thought was acting out his Mother's jealousy toward the women he desired, triggering blackouts so he would forget in an amnesia like state. All to protect what had to be protected in his mind so Mother wouldn't be taken away. He didn't want to believe it, he wished to always make amends with her no matter what the cost. Her presence was still felt no matter what they told him. For they would tell him that they nearly lost him the first year he moved in, his mind unhinged out of his own insecurity for unbearable crimes he didn't wish to understand. He saw his Mother time and time again taunt him to hurt those around him, to get "into the mood." _It was always HER fault not mine_, but the doctors and assistants would shake their heads and tell him to reconsider his thoughts again. It was a struggle time and time again for he couldn't let go of her and tried "to be her" as Richmond diagnosed, triggering beliefs that she was back from the dead. That façade was being largely diminished for how else would his mind cope and act tough and depend on anyone or trust anyone especially the woman who betrayed him in the end. All these questions solved and unsolved in revolving door therapy.

Suddenly a knock on the door came, a red haired assistant, exactly Norman's age had come to prompt him to come to the cafeteria for breakfast. She always encouraged him to sit with other patients then. She was the first one who told him about his mental illness, the few people he at the institution he felt most at ease with. Dr. Richmond had given her details on him so she'd recognize the door: **Name:** Norman Francis Bates, **Age:** 32, **Committed by:** Samuel Loomis and Lila Crane, **Time let in:** December 19 1959, **Mental Illness/reason for residence:** Depersonalization Disorder/Schizophrenia/Amnesia, **Criminal History:** conviction of murder of 3 men and 7 women.

"Norman! It's me! Assistant Hayden Cummings. I'm gonna unlock this door. Are you appropriately dressed?"

Norman mused at such a thought and said, "No, not really, it's just my pajamas."  
>"Oh you're fine. I'm not THAT strict!" she giggled and unlocked the door.<p>

"H-H-Hi Ms. Cummings," he said.

"Good morning, Norman, you look very clean shaven today. Anything interesting you did last night?"

"No, I didn't go to movie night. They were showing Bye Bye Birdie because of some of the patients' good behavior. I wasn't allowed to go because supposedly I charged one of the patients who I thought insulted me-insulted Mother. Then one of his former gang mates, a woman, joined in."

"If they are harassing you, you can tell me anything and I'll take it up with Richmond. I think I might know who you're talking about. He's Jake Luvo and she's Vera Jenkin, part time compulsive thieves. They always thought they were all that and pretended to be royalties of England as a defense mechanism."

"What a pig."

"Yes, Luvo is just that and so is Jenkin."

"Women."

"Norman don't say that, you know what we've talked about and you are about to get a new nurse. You've had very nice men AND WOMEN take care of you. You were reluctant to work with specifically women at first but you've gradually opened up. You talk to me. We have a new full time nurse that will work with you now than a part time one. It seems like every single nurse we've had work with you, progress has been extremely difficult. We needed a person of a different caliber and really add more responsibility and ingenuity. But you have to cooperate with her, Norman. It's the only way you'll be cured."

"I guess. How do you know she'll be the right one for me?"

"Because I have to tend to other patients and this nurse is gonna be with you all times of the day except the night unlike your other night-shift part time nurses. I'm just a full time assistant with other duties to other patients. You are going to be much more active and on the go. Richmond sees a lot of potential in you."

"How? Why? He was against me...against Mother...last time."

Hayden stared at him.

"Let's not talk about him. Whatever happened, happened, what does he want with me?" Norman asked.

"He trying to figure that part out. His new nurse, she's coming straight out of the Oregon Reformed College for Women Criminals, where I graduated from."

With exception to Hayden, Norman had heard strange stories about the women's criminal pasts from that college. Some of them could be real bitches, not so different from his mother, though he tried to deny that aspect. What was Richmond thinking? Did he want to cage Norman more now?

"You never told me what you did before you came here."

"It's not my business to tell other patients of an assistant's own criminal past, just that I did something unforgivable. That's the best I can connect with you, maybe nurses can give you more of their background."

Norman stepped forward closer to Hayden who was around the same height as him.

"I really can't trust anyone. I open up my heart for you and you give me nothing. What's the point, no wonder the temper...Oh God!"

"Norman, I don't want to talk about it either just as you felt reluctant to talk about your Mother."

"But it's been two years since they placed me with you."

"It doesn't matter, besides it's not like I'm around you all the time, I've had my mind on other patients."

Norman gave her a cold look. She shuttered and clutched the door handle, the other hand on the emergency button.

"Look, Norman, just get yourself dressed. Here, I'll pick an outfit for you."

"Ah-Ah- I'm alright. I can decide."

Norman smiled and ran a hand through his hair, he sensed her still nervous around him ever since she was assigned to him. What was the trust in that? But of course his mother always told him to be skeptical of all people. He thought of one dream he had with him arguing with her.

_**She's a nice girl, Mother. She's trying to help me. **_

_** Nonsense, boy, only I can help you. Your Mother. The slut's hair and figure is nothing like mine.**_

_** She's not a slut, she's an intelligent girl. Her name is Hayden Cummings. This isn't natural, Mother. We need to rework this relationship. Why can't it be like other mothers and sons.**_

_** It's always natural for a mother to love her son. Nothing was or is ever wrong with us. **_

_He woke up. _

"Hayden..." he asked timidly.

"Yes?" her voice ringing like a bell.

He inhaled deeply and said, "Will you wait for me outside? A few steps outside my door? It makes me calmer going into the cafeteria."

"Of course," she said closing the door slowly.

He washed up and then put on his favorite outfit: a buttoned up collar shirt [Hayden always said that covered up his awkwardly long neck and appropriately accentuated his shoulders. He found that compliment unique for she never commented on his physique, especially not to any of the other patients], whitish gray sweatpants, and white Keds shoes. Brushing his dark cropped wavy hair into its usual do he was ready for another day, though his eyes were a bit bloodshot the night before. Norman knocked on the door telling Hayden it was okay to unlock it.

"Ready, trooper?" she asked.

"Yep," he said with his endearing, yet awkward smile, "So, um-what has Dr. Richmond decided for the place?"

"Well, recently, Dr. Richmond proposed the integration of more former criminals as members of the staffing in nurses, orderlies, and assistants. He was willing to take a risk with the patients to boost rehabilitation in the patients depending on the applicant's personality, experience, expertise, and maturity level. They would be registered to help patients see eye to eye more. Richmond hoped this increase in comfort level would help the patients connect and see possibilities of rehabilitation ridding them of their old ways by seeing the examples of the nurses, orderlies and assistants. More people you can say like me. Older staff saw these moves as a controversial challenge to the status quo here, but eventually let on as a gradual success rate in patient experience and therapy improvement was documented in other state insane asylums such as in New York, Illinois, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Though the experience with these new members was remarkable, some staff had sometimes proven themselves unable to continue and were pressured back into the criminal life themselves, sometimes becoming new patients there. Richmond would make sure proper training and qualifications and mental tests were done on each applicant to ensure better staff with our place."

"Huh...um, I don't feel comfortable with this Hayden."

"Why? Don't you trust me on this?"

"No, it's not that I don't trust you. I-I trust you."

"You are going to be fine. If the nurse is making you uncomfortable then you can tell me. I really want you to stand up for yourself, Norman. You know you aren't a killer anymore."

"Yes I am, you know it, don't lie. I'll never be fully rid of my mother, it's just not worth it."

"Then we'll see," she said and put an arm around his waste.

He just about heard his mother's resounding voice in the back of his head.

_How dare she touch! How could you, how could you? You dirty boy, do you hear me?_

His muscles were tensing up, the words, the awful things he could potentially do to poor Hayden. Hayden picked up on it, quickly, these were hideous quirks that came with the illnesses the first time she heard about them. The uniqueness of the delusions fascinated her to work with patients like these. She didn't want to upset him. This was one of his hurdles, she was determined maybe the next nurse would help her than Hayden potentially in moving up in rank. Norman's head turned quickly to Hayden as they walked and she slowly removed her hand from his waist.

"Sorry," she said indiscreetly.

_His mother laughed off in the distance. _

_ Bitch, _he thought.

"You're fine, I almost felt like I was going to...," Norman said as he stopped, his eyes rolled back and put a hand on his face, he could just about see the cafeteria. He laid up against the cold, white walls leading to the cafeteria. Hayden came towards him, her figure slightly glowing in the sunlight filtering in from the windows.

"Norman, just focus on your breakfast. We'll talk about the rest of your day with the new nurse."

"Alright. I will, I promise. Will you come in too?"

"No, I already ate my breakfast I have to run errands for other patients like you. Remember?"

"Yes."

"Nice, Norman, good luck!"

What was it that Hayden didn't want to tell him? What was hiding beneath those picture perfect green eyes, slender figure, and shoulder length red hair? What was she held for? Not her. _She seems so kind to me_. _She wouldn't harm anyone in the world, why in the world would she choose a place like this to work, people like him_. He opened the doors to find the patients already situated at their tables.

_"Why does finding a table to sit at each day have to be a chore for me?"_ Norman's eyes darted about the cafeteria to scan for potential tables of so called "friends" to associate with. Ever since he was little, socialization had been difficult for him. So many faces, so many conflicting voices, too much energy in one room no matter what size. It was moments like these that he missed the motel, the tumble weeds gathering, the birds chirping, and the silent breeze at the windows of the mansion. Sometimes being alone was the best thing for him in his life, no commotion, no noise, let the empty moments pass by. Until he met her, that very night, she changed the course of his life forever, if only he could remember her.

_She was so beautiful in the parlour light, so beautiful, so haunted, so helpless. She was running away from something, she would never tell. How he wanted to hold her and kiss her and love her. But she had to leave the next morning back to Phoenix, she stepped into a private trap and wanted to bring herself out. Why couldn't he give her that chance? Mother's word was always the last, he was hopelessly bound to it, even if it was a lost cause_. What was her name? _Mary, Miriam..._

_And then there was another girl, another stubborn and spunky teenager who was just having fun with her friends. _

_**Who was she? Oh...why can't I remember these names? Has this all become routine? Am I mad? She had these piercing brown eyes that looked like they could stare into your soul. **_

_Encapsulating they were, that he couldn't resist even after the awful deed a week before. His-no Mother's messes, oh why does she have to wreck every single moment? But she made him do it, every dark impulse of red and black around his head. She had hurt him and lied to him, why couldn't he trust anyone? She damaged his property, his home, his only world...just for fun. He would never forgive her should he ever meet her again. _

_**All of them are deceitful and dishonest.**_

_Nothing and nobody, but were these his thoughts all along or just following along a set of crazed delusions and fantasies to get by, this girl, that girl, those women, HIS Mother..._

_...__**all women, no PEOPLE.**_

Norman had taken his seat alone in the back of the cafeteria with two pancakes and scrambled eggs with milk. The cafeteria ladies, graying, sagging faced old chums, tried to make conversation with him, a friendly "hi" and "how are you" and then he'd rush out for being too awkward or twitchy. What would his Mother think of him associating with people who could be her age? Eating quickly as he could, he continued to scan the cafeteria. He was always hesitant to sit with former serial killers, there were five including Norman. One of them happened to be autistic and had little to no control over his behavior. His parents had divorced when he was very young and neither of them would take him anymore because of his deformed eye and obsessive compulsive behavior. Another young man a few years older than Norman was a misogynist because his own mother had abused him so, once she died he was glad to be rid of her and free to avenge the world of "her kind." The other was an old man who was cannibalistic toward his victims, someone exposed him years earlier and he told them that he claimed he was always possessed by the Devil and that the reason he acted that way was because the Devil put a curse on his family for some self-fulfilling prophecy. The last one was a mid-forties woman, an unusual one, but she was a systematic assailant who hated her husband for traveling and then picking up random women along the way, causing the divorce to make her snap, targeting any man who reminded her of her husband. She finally came upon him and he had her committed against her will.

Norman couldn't afford to associate with them, though the four of them sat together at a table together like some deranged clique. Especially the young man around Norman's age had an eerily similar background to him and he couldn't bare it. The other parts of the cafeteria contained Mafia members that shared anger management issues and parental complexes. The girl patients mostly sat together in groups of four or five usually the ones who had similar disorders such as schizophrenia or anorexia. Depersonalization Disordered and Dissociative Disordered patients sat near the back where Norman was.

"_I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy,"_ with his hands cusped on his ears, _"Oh Mother, please, I just want to go home."_

**Same day – 7:30am Outside Toby's Apartment**

"Are you ready? First day, kid!" Toby said hugging Maddie.

"I am! I hope you are!" she answered and kissed him for a second or two.

"Now we'll meet at 1:30pm for lunch, like we promised?"

"Yep! You better believe it!"

"Alright, I will see you then, sweetums," Toby said winking at her.

She watched him walk off. Maddie was amused by his choice of outfits for work days, one of the many things she said made him sexy. This one included a stripped scarf, white Polo Ralph Lauren turtleneck, black vest, corteroys, and black pointed professional shoes. His hair was slicked up with bangs sticking out boyishly. He swung a long brown bag around his shoulder. As he walked toward his work, Toby took one look behind his shoulder and smiled at Maddie and put his hands inside his pockets ready for the day. She too turned her back from her fiancé knowing she'd see him soon enough. The Los Angeles Insane Asylum was just two trainstops ahead of her. Maddie took two lines to reach her destination. The place looked almost like a vacation resort than asylum. Maybe the builders intended it that way so as not to spook the inmates.

"This isn't gonna be so bad. Just gotta get settled, my office first and then meet the nurses in the cafeteria for breakfast. The patients thank God will be under some form of control, I hope," Maddie said to herself.

Maddie stepped inside the asylum and scanned her surroundings, the hallway filled with orderlies and nurses filing their patients toward the cafeteria. Different wings housed different mentally incompetent criminals. She was put assigned compulsive criminals much against her wishes to be with a mostly female crowd of patients who were situated as emotionally unbalanced or shared similar drug backgrounds as her. Dr. Richmond thought differently and wanted Maddie to go outside her comfort zone. These people were put in here for a reason, they were mentally challenged and could potentially be swayed with just the right amount of counsel than incarcerated mates in traditional prisons. She had learned in her training that mental illness was just one block away from criminals of this caliber to be normal abiding citizens. Maddie reluctantly agreed, _"I swear if you put me with any guy who tries to rape me, I'll sue!" _

_ "Nothing like that is going to happen under my watch. Besides we've separated extremely high risk mates from the compulsive ones you'll work with. Some of those high risk ones have made their way up the health ranks into the unit you'll be in. We've done many tests and mixed therapies on the patients to ensure you're safety. You'll be on all day monitoring of this individual. Plus in your free time, you can hang out with Hayden and go out to lunch and then come back. It's not like you're bound like a prisoner," Dr. Richmond reasoned with her over the phone before she came in. _

_ "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Maddie said. _

Maddie found her office number inside where Dr. Richmond's main office area was. The place was quaint with the occasional Edward Hopper painting about the teal colored walls and aqua curtains that overlooked the asylum lawn. She opened the door and found everything from books, manuals, a typewriter, and notepads all set up for her. All she had to add was pictures of her and Toby and doodles she saved from college to tape up to give the room pizazz. She also knew a hanging plant would be in order to give a more relaxed feel in case the patient came in. Maddie was puzzled on who exactly the patient could be. Dr. Richmond wanted nurses to not be predisposed to know the patient's name and background. To talk with and have discussions like a friend would be the best approach to getting inside a patient's head than coming in with preconceived ideas.

"God, if I have a patient that obsesses he's Mickey Mouse, I'll the fuck out of here," Maddie muttered to herself.

She began to hold her stomach briefly, she remembered she hadn't really eaten breakfast because she wanted to catch Toby before he left early. Maddie decided to go to the cafeteria since it was nearly a half hour since breakfast had started. It took a good five minutes to walk and she glanced at a few of the patients' doors. Nothing particularly interesting yet. She was looking forward to seating herself with the other nurses and assistants in the wing beside the cafeteria. Maddie opened the doors and scanned the area, _Ah! There they are!_

Hayden recognized Maddie's badge and lab coat, "Hey, girlfriend, come here! We've been expecting your glorious arrival!"

Maddie walked over, pulling strands of her hair back behind her ears and sat beside Hayden.

"Hi! Does everyone know who they'll be assigned with?" Maddie asked.

The nurses only could name the numbers on the sheets of whom they'd be assigned. Some of them had come from her college and switched to new patients year after year. Maddie was the only one who would spend the entire day one particular patient.

"I heard he's cute!" said one female blonde nurse.

"How do you know that? Have you seen his face?" asked Maddie.

"No, but I just love to make these comments about the male patients here. Seriously why are the mental cases hotter than the normal guys I'd see in my neighborhood? Gives me the creeps," the blonde said nibbling on a pancake.

"Girls, we shouldn't judge, they've had a pretty rough existence," Hayden spoke almost maternally.

"In this case, some of these guys you have to think, they are beyond repair," said young male assistant.

"Well not if you get the easy patients, I for one have one, it's this girl who is a compulsive vandalist and thinks that stray cats are giving her these orders to commit crimes," his friend, a closed cropped brown hair boy remarked, the other nurses giggling subtly.

Maddie remained mostly quiet just eating her breakfast thinking about how the assignment to this patient was to pan out. Number 671...she was assigned to find him anyway as the blonde nurse and the young male assistant were to find there's. As breakfast ended, Hayden advised Maddie that she already prepped the patient for her so he knew what to expect.

"I'm so excited to work with you Maddie! This is going to be so much fun! It's gonna be girlfriend time all year!" Hayden said cheerfully.

"I can't wait either, you've been very kind to me," Maddie answered as Hayden showed her down the hall back the compulsive criminal wing.

Norman Bates climbed up on the window sill of his room and looked out.

"When are they going to realize I can't be cured? Mother is going to return no matter what we do. It won't make a difference. She hasn't told me-She hasn't hurt anyone in a while...Oh God, where is my mind? As much as Dr. Richmond and the nurses try to understand me, I'll never get out."

As he stepped down, Norman accidentally tripped on a sneaker he left at the foot of his bed. Weeping steadily, he attempted to regain himself amassing his gangly body outstretching his arms on his bed covers. He buried his face inside them and slide up onto the bed to take a short nap before being visiting in by the new nurse. For a moment to make himself more composed and relaxed Norman suddenly took off his shirt. Though he was lanky, he possessed a slightly muscular build that the other patients strangely envied whenever he was assigned to work out. Tossing and turning Norman tried to think of phrases or words to say to the new nurse without it being awkward. Putting a hand to his long neck he traced down the bone structure of his Adam's apple thinking it twitching would give away to his behavior. Norman laid forward and wiped the remainder of sweat from his forehead on his pillow, closed his eyes and switched back to his original position. He could barely hear Hayden's voice from the outside wishing the new nurse good luck.

The nurse opened up the door and Norman stood up wide eyed like a barn owl. Maddie shut the door hard, speechless and dropping her notepad. This was the patient..._it was him_. The man she had been dreaming about all these years, the countless nightmares. How she tried to repress him out of her mind forever...getting a boyfriend to forget the whole incident. Those hours asking Toby to dress up a certain way...this man was her worst enemy...poor Toby and her antics she had to put him through with wardrobe. Now that she thought of it, Toby looked physically similar to this man only wider eyes and lighter hair. No, this was crazy, how could she secretly develop an unconscious crush on someone who was her own worst enemy, who destroyed her chances of regaining the Chaperone's trust in her...she never forgot enemies... and his mother? What happened to her?

Norman looked at the nurse, _yes, she was familiar,_ though he always denied it, he never forgot a face or what she and her gang did, to threaten to destroy his home, and _she was dirty, duplicitous, and filthy to men, deceitful. She tried to hurt Mother. Women like her are all the same._

"You," Norman answered partially shaken.

"I was about to say the same thing," Maddie said distastefully and took a seat far away from Norman.

"I thought you were incarcerated."

"I thought you lost your mind and never got parole."

"You hurt me deeply and Mother."

"Your mother? You're delusional and a freak you know that!?"

"Shut up."

"Look you have no frickin' choice but to stick with me as your nurse."

"I don't have to put up with you ever again. You nearly exposed Mother, how could you?"

"I did nothing wrong."

Norman began to fold his arms and Maddie rose from her seat.

"What you did to those girls, your mother, her lover, the detective, and my friends was despicable, so don't go mass projecting your stupid Oedipal fantasies and impulses on a bitch who's been deceased for almost as long as I've been alive, idiot."

"Don't you speak about my mother like that! She'll have her way with you, I know she will."

"The only person who is repsonisble or conduct your heinous actions is YOU, do you hear me, YOU!"

"Don't provoke her."

"Try me."

_Kill her, Norman. _

Norman stood still almost trance like, deep down he didn't want to, the awful things he would utter and think, but the muscles in his hands were pulsating like never before, despite the various therapy sessions he had gone through. It was starting again, he could feel it, an unstoppable force about to explode. Maddie put her hand close to the needle she kept indiscreetly hidden inside her jacket pocket.

Spiteful passion and wrath took over...Norman began to charge at Maddie fiercely, but she managed to jump out of the way before Norman could touch her.

"Norman you aren't you're mother! I'm warning you better stop or else I'll use this sedative."

"Sorry, girl, I have the last word," Norman said mimicking his mother's voice with his hands out to strangle her.

He kept a delusion going for fifteen years, he wasn't about to let it go. Maddie dodged out of the way and got behind Norman, jabbing her thumb into a weak part of his neck. The Chaperone had taught this key technique in dealing with opposition, this training in self-defense never left her. His eyes rolled back and collapsed hopelessly onto the bed. Maddie had him pinned with her legs in almost a rape like position on top of him. Her face deathly close to his when he began to calm down. She too felt familiar impulses from her gang banging days to strike him at any moment, it was on the tip of her fingertips, simmering violently like fresh electricity from a bolt of lightning.

"PLEASE DON'T HURT ME! MOTHER MADE ME ACT LIKE THIS! SHE GETS JEALOUS! OH GOD NO! NO!"

"Pull that crappy excuse again, and things are gonna get a lot worse. You've messed with the wrong girl, Norman. We are going to play by _my rules_. This is going to be my session. You will answer _my_ questions. You'll stick by _me _and not give me any shit like this again or call Richmond. _I can control you at all times like the way your mother did when you were younger, the way you ended her life tragically, sinfully, and hideously, the way you killed those girls_. You'll be accused and be sent back to the higher risk unit prisoners or if it gets totally out of hand, incarceration _for life_. And I might potentially lose my frickin' job and my mind and get recommitted."

Norman and Maddie eyed each other for seconds on end until Norman said as his eyes shifted downward, "You're hurting me (wincing slightly) You're nails are digging into my chest."

Maddie saw spots of blood on her finger tips, "Sorry."

On her first day, her professionalism felt like an all-time low. Oh how she would be fired in an instant if anyone found out she hurt a patient. No matter what his or her reputation or mental state was. He had tried to hurt her too, they'd both get punished and there was nothing she could do. The trust she built with her parents and Toby, the love of her life, would never look at her the same way again...the wedding nearly slipped her mind. She sat down on the bench once more and picked up her clipboard. Norman proceeded to put on his shirt on again. Why had Mother come back again? Maybe he was kidding himself, she'd never leave, and he only falsely thought he achieved progress. And now he, no SHE had done worse...Dr. Richmond would never forgive him or have him thrown out, to a prison. He'd never improve after that, only to be locked away and never spoken to or see the world again. Norman then stood up and sat beside Maddie on the bench clutching her left hand, "Oh, Maddie! I've seen things and done things that I never ever dreamed I would do. I'm scared. There's just no way of getting rid of her. Worse, I can't live without her. Maybe I am her deep inside, maybe she wants me to think that...I hate her for it, but yet I've never had anyone else to love in my life, so hopelessly attached to her. She comforts me, when nothing else will."

"I understand, Norman. That's why I'll be assigned to watching you and working with you all day. We'll figure out a way for you to get over this. We have to take baby steps and you have to most importantly, trust me."

"Trust?"

"Yes, you know what that is don't you?"

"I do of course I do. But...Mother..."

"Norman, don't you see? That's just it! This is going to be hard for you to hear. She's perverted the very sense of the word. It's up to us to regain your trust not just with women and other people, but with yourself. That's why I'm here. I wasn't expected to be landed with you. I have no choice, but I'm going to see how we work through it. Maybe you'll prove me and Richmond wrong."

Norman smiled at that thought and looked down at the notes Maddie was writing.

"Maddie, please understand from now on. I will and would never, EVER, hurt you again."

Maddie reached out her right hand to him, "Promise?"

Norman looked down at her hand and Maddie put both arms on his, "You may believe it's your mother who is killing people or controlling your behavior, but it's your own developed, extreme passion to murder, disassociate and cut people off to protect her memory that hinders you, making the illness worse. I don't think this is just obsession, this is also more of an addiction. I'm counting on you to do the very best you can every day to work with me and trust me on the plans Richmond and I have for you. I still battle criminal-like impulses every minute of every day, I'm using this job as a cover or a buffer, because, I'm just as uncertain as you about the future and I'm happy thank God I'm not alone in this venture."

Norman was silent and then proceeded to hold both of Maddie's hands, "Promise."

"Nice! Oh, wait I have another orientation meeting soon in fifteen minutes, but we'll begin with the first therapy talk after that, okay?"

"Alright," he said nodding and a smile began to form on the sides of his face gleefully.

"We can talk about whatever you like."

"Well, I'll see you in a little bit, Maddie."

"Goodbye, sport!"

His stepfather used that name insultingly whenever he thought Norman was too weak at something like playing baseball or wrestling. His mother would laugh in the background. Norman put his hands to his ears, he could almost hear their cruel laugher and eyes on him as a flashback emerged:

"_You're not a girl are you, Norman?" His stepfather gestured throwing a baseball. _

_ Norman had no glove. _

_ "Oh, Chet you are wonderful, Norman never had a frickin' man in his life, but I did try the very best I could. Oh...petty outcomes," she insinuated smiling. _

_ Norman laid on the grass knocked out cold from the baseball, his nose bleeding profusely. _

_ "Mother, help me up," he says. _

_ The two of them look down on him and walk off to one of the cabins at the motel without a word or gesture of care. _


	5. Chapter 5

Chapt. 5 – Shy Boy

**April 15****th**** 1964 - The Los Angeles Insane Asylum – 1pm **

Norman Bates began to get used to Maddie observing him and following him around. It was part of procedure anyway to have him watched. He certainly could remember the first time he ever came to the asylum. He was afraid, paranoid, and not sound of mind...an unsettled, fragmentary personality. Those twinges and thoughts of red and black pervaded his thoughts persistently getting the better of him. Anything to keep Mother safe was all that mattered in the world, he didn't want to be abandoned any more. Not this time, just to hear her voice was all that matter when he was alone in his room, or cell as we should put it. He would occasionally slip into acting out what she thought or felt at a certain situation, but deep down he couldn't do it anymore, the charade was ending slowly, deathly, and there was nothing he could do. Yet her voice came back in his sleep, so it became a revolving door to say the least as more and more therapy sessions piled up. Prescription drugs only mad him rebel more to keep the illusion alive. Dr. Richmond was at a loss of what to do with him at that point.

_Kill them. Kill them_, would ring loud in his ears as he fought her influence with little strength his mind possessed to control himself. Though Richmond never admitted it to Maddie, nurses would come and go, either because they possessed little to no patience with Norman, got promoted, or he accidentally or purposefully hit them they would resign or get assigned to "easier" patients. Sedatives and endless experimental trials he wished to forget.

"It was her fault not mine!" he'd say and then slip into her voice.

The orderlies and assistants would shake their heads and haul him off to his room like a misbehaving child. He'd hear her cackling and laughing from far away in the corners of his mind. He too couldn't help but burst out into spasms of merriment. So alone and so desperate for a connection for anyone who might understand.

"Norman?" asked Maddie.

"Yes, Miss Brink?" Norman asked.

"Are you paying attention?"

"Ah-I-w-w-well...no."

Maddie shook her head and had marked on her clipboard on his attention problems from a five to a four. A bit of an improvement from last month when his distractiveness was scattered under points of stress. Norman looked up to see what she was writing.

"Do you tell Richmond about all our conversations?" he asked with his arched eyebrows frowning.

"Not all of them," Maddie said smiling.

Norman laid down on the sofa within a questionnaire room reserved for the two of them with Maddie in another chair. There were only five more minutes left of the session before he went off for lunch. Maddie would go off too with her group, she wasn't obligated to stay with him. He felt a slight compulsion to ask her for just today to eat with him, it wasn't uncommon for nurses to eat with their patients. Her stern demeanor and elfin elegance strangely reminded him of Marion, the way she nearly asked him to join her for supper in Cabin 1 that fateful night. How he wished things would have been different...

"So Richmond says that the past nurses and assistants have done considerable work helping you lessen your schizoid bursts and violent impulses. Catatonic activity pervaded you from functioning when you first came here right?"

"Yes, it did. I wasn't in my right frame of mind. I mean...you can say I knew, but everything just seemed like a blur, everyone looking at me funny like I was from another planet."

"We shouldn't dwell on that aspect. Your mind just...snapped, out of stress and insanity of a parental relationship gone horribly wrong."

"_What are you suggesting?_"

"Norman, we talked about this. How many times is this going to happen?"

"I know you did," Norman said as he put his hands on his ears, "I just...ah-oh, God...Mother please stop."

Maddie came over quickly and took out a sedative and threatened to use it on his arm. The voices accumulated in his head until finally plateauing as his breath steadied. Maddie held his hand tightly hoping for anything to work with him. Maddie had learned that his trust with nurses especially females had been rocky from the beginning and had slowly begun to warm up. She had no idea things were this horrid with Norman. How little human contact he had while at the motel and tending to the corpse of his mother. Sleeping with the body was one aspect Maddie could never wrap her mind around amid her professionalism to take facts as they were with each patient.

"Feeling better?" she asked impatiently.

His mother's voice along with other unrecognizable ones began to disappear gradually, "Yes...strangely, yes. When you grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard enough, the voices began to go away. It sounds a bit corny," Norman said.

"That's a good thing, but it's not enough to get us where we're going, we have to try other tactics."

"Are you sure this will work?"

"Take my hand, let's go out for a walk around the pond."

**Toby's Watch Shop – Same day 12pm **

_"What's taking her? I thought we agreed on noon for lunch and a few minutes of kisses and chest caresses,"_ thought Toby looking longingly at his and Maddie's engagement picture.

Toby tugged at his shirt collar and spun around in his leather chair to see if more customers came. His one friend, Dave, was busy around town promoting the business by flyers and his other friend, Clark, was in the back room fixing up a watch from some newlywed.

"Ahhh, it's stuffy in here," Toby said and stretched over to put a fan on, "Seriously, is it always summer here?"

"Yep, gotta get used to it, man, this ain't Phlly," called Clark, "Isn't that girl of yours supposed to come in for lunch?"

"Yeah, yeah, she is. Maddie. She's supposed to, she gave me a call this morning before she even started work telling me. She doesn't have to do it twice," Toby called back.

"I'm telling you, don't push the wedding till July, and just marry the girl now. Here and now. I'd do it in a heartbeat."

"You would! You always got all the girls at those frickin' frat parties!"

"Don't judge me, man! That's in the past now," and turned on the radio with the Rolling Stones playing.

"Alright, dude, cool," Toby laughed as the door to the watch shop opened.

Sam Loomis and Lila Crane entered. The stature and broadness of Sam partially intimidated Toby. He'd never seen a customer of that build. He'd swear he'd get this man what he definitely wanted or risked possibly being clobbered by him. Then walked Lila behind Sam. Her wavy blonde hair, thick eye brows, and petite shaped curvaceous figure almost rivaled Maddie. But yet, there was something missing, he sensed, an ease or an openness or soft smile and comfort that Maddie possessed. No woman was as good as Maddie. Toby got up from his seat, briefly tucking in his collared white shirt and stepped over to Sam and Lila, "Hi, folks, is there anything I can help you with? My name is Toby Turner, original and one time owner of T's Turns Watch Shop."

Sam chuckled and said, "No thanks, we're fine, sir. I'm just helping my friend select something. Lila what do you think?"

Lila shot Sam a dirty look, "I don't want to come here. I told I wanted to see Marion!" and turned away from him tearing up.

Toby stepped away for a moment, "I'm sorry, maybe I should come back later."

"No, no it's fine, the lady's fine. Show us some options for stainless silver, thin ones," remarked Sam.

"Sure, come on over."

Toby led them to the counter where the women's watches were situated on the right side and the men's the left. He pointed to a Disney-eske watch for Lila to view.

"Hey, dear, that looks nice," Sam said eying the watch.

Lila still looked dissatisfied but reluctantly agreed to buy the watch. Toby was saddened, not only was it a waste of money it seemed, but something else was troubling her. He wished he knew what it was about. Was Marion her mother or sister? What happened? It was those rare moments he found in customers that he wished he could possess a telekinetic glimpse into private lives, help people before it's too late. Maddie burst open the watch business shop door. Sam and Lila turned their heads to see Maddie jumping up behind the counter and kissed Toby hard on the lips, making him fall to the ground.

"Ah-my goodness, you have to excuse my girlfriend," Toby said shakily and handed Sam the change needed.

Sam then turned his gaze to Maddie...it was the girl from five years ago. He had seen her briefly before Norman was incarcerated. Sam Loomis too was one of many bachelors in Fairvale that her gang hit. Horrid memories of drunkenness and paint splattering of his father's hardware store flooded his mind.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, "I thought they locked you up with Bates."

"Look that was a long time ago, buddy. Stop it. I'm turning on a new leaf, you see. I just happened to get set up at Los Angeles Insane Asylum by Fred Richmond," Maddie said incorrigibly.

"What you did to those other men was despicable. It was my father's business you know that? He spent so many blood, sweat and tears on that place to promote it and get support for it. You have no idea who you were messing with. I should have had Chambers on your ass from day one, sweetheart."

"Oh shut up, Loomis. You're not so innocent either, striking up with that whore Crane."

Lila snapped out of her decrepit glance and shouted, "DON'T YOU DARE SAY A WORD ABOUT MARION! You maybe qualified as one of the many witnesses of Bates's crimes, but don't you dare speak ill of my family!"

"God it seems like everyone has a family issue. When will this charade end?" Maddie asked disrespectfully.

"I won't ever get over Marion. She was my sister. My best friend and now I have no one to share anything with. Nothing you can say or do can make me change my mind about her. So shut up."

"Whatever happened with Marion and Norman is in the past. He's locked up now and he can't hurt us."

"Please, folks, are you done, paying?" asked Toby trying to promote better customer interaction with Sam and Lila.

"Yes, we're done, come on, Lila, let's go home," Sam remarked and gave Maddie a frown before exiting.

"Fuck," Maddie muttered.

"Can you please explain to me what the hell that was, honey?" asked Toby.

"Oh nothing, dear, just an old, old acquaintance."

"Come on, be honest with me. We're supposed to, remember?"

"Fine, as long as you tell me why you were eying that blonde bimbo so assumingly."

"What? That's ridiculous. I love you."

"Really?"

Toby was silent, as Maddie smirked.

"Honey, I glance at women all the time, you told me remember in those sessions to be more open, but I never got hot for her that moment. Lila is conversative and repressed, but you aren't and I love you for that. She seems like a bitch, overbearing and can't let go of the past, but you did."

"Thank you, Toby for that reassurance."

"You haven't been coming for lunch that often for a few weeks."

"Richmond is giving me a lot of paperwork during my lunchtimes for further orientation."

"Now, what was your business with Loomis?"

"He was one of my more infamous bachelors I gang-banged before Bates made the list. He nearly fell for me when I got him drunk that night and said that he would marry me, mind you I was in sixteen to his twenty six, I secretly called my gang to come in and splatter the store in white and black paint. Even in his drunken haze, he called the cops on me later than night. The gang and I were chased briefly out of Fairvale. I'll never ever forgive him."

"You should, Maddie. I thought we were over this."

"I was desperate okay and just wanted a little excitement in my life? Is that a problem?"

"There's nothing wrong with having more excitement in your life, but use on other activities. That doesn't mean you intrude on other people's property and violate them like that. With regard to what happened with the others you could have gotten killed in those ventures. That Chaperone's approval to you was everything in the end so you'd get promoted into the family."

"You have no idea...hence the killing."

"You led a very dangerous life, Maddie. But it's time to put the past behind us."

"Well what about you then?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know damn well, I had to frickin' coach you through to get you functioning again."

"That's private what happened those years ago."

"Fine then we won't talk about it. Moving on then."

"Yes, let's go have lunch then shall we?"

"Sure, man!"

Toby and Maddie took their lunch outside to a nearby park area and discussed more aspects about work.

"So like you gang banged Hercules back there?"

"Yep, actually the tallest gent I ever laid eyes on. He told me things weren't getting too good with his first wife. Major issues as to employment and priorities on the relationship. He told me he was ready to move on from her. She was too overpowering for him and he saw a friend in me. He told me this stuff while drunk. When he ran me out of Fairvale, me and the guys took a last minute trip to Vegas. After I got back, I looked back in the window of his shop and saw that he started a love affair with another woman...Marion Crane, I presume."

"What a story, Mad."

"Yeah you can say that again."

"That Lila just seems like such an unhappy person. What happened to her sister?"

"Um...she was murdered by Norman Bates."

"Ahhhhhh...yeah, you told me Richmond told you that. You would think she'd be over it by now. I mean the woman's been dead for five years."

"Um, do I have to ask you how long it took you to get over Debora and Constance?"

"Shut up."

"Fine. I have a confession to make, Tob."

"What?"

"I'm working with a patient."

"Yes, I know that or else you would have been fired and unemployed a while ago."

"He is Norman Bates."

"WHAT? HOW? WHY?"

"I don't know. Dr. Richmond's crazy in how he set me up with him. Doesn't he even know my history with Bates?"

"No and neither do I. What happened with you and Bates?"

"He tried to kill me."

"He killed many people, Mad."

"Yes, I know that. But he's mentally ill, he's a compulsive killer who thinks his mother is controlling his actions to murder. Did I mention he crossed dressed as his mother to kill people? I don't even think mothers dress like that anymore."

"That's fucked up as shit."

"Yeah, bit of an understatement, Tob. He was actually a nice guy the night I met him, though he found out about my gang banging in the end. The most unassuming dude you'd ever meet. We had a bit of a tender moment in a cabin room, nothing physical mind you. Then I tried robbing the register and here he comes in drag ready to butcher me to shreds. He accused me of murdering Jack and Dennis."

"Wow...so that's why..."

"Yep, I'll never EVER get back with the Chaperone. My gang life and Mafia future though I think about it so much is OVER. And I got landed at Los Angeles Insane Asylum."

"Well if you never wanted to become a nurse, you would have never met me."

Maddie supposed he was right and put her left on his right hand on the wooden table.

"Remember that day?" Toby asked.

"Yes, but it took some time for me to finally accept how I felt about you," Maddie said.

"I was in a bind totally after what happened to me. You made me open up more and more."

"From day one when I got assigned to you. I was shadowing your psychiatrist at the Oregon Rehabilitation Center specifically for sexually abused patients. I was just in the back of the room watching and taking notes, occasionally chiming in. You kept on eying me constantly, Dr. Monroe kept telling you to pay attention to him and not the 'beauty' in the background. But to tell you the truth the more I participated, the more you opened up during therapy."

"You're eyes kind of freaked me out at first, but they were so mesmerizing I couldn't look away. I still remember it like it was yesterday, November 15th 1962, when you waltzed in. A breathe of fresh air and yet I was scared cause I thought you were going to be like the two of them."

"And was I?"

Toby leaned forward and kissed Maddie for a good ten seconds before letting go. He gave a childish grin and rolling his eyes playfully. Maddie ran over to his side of the table and hugged him tight around his waist. They came back to the watch store, holding hands, and Toby closed the door to his office. They proceeded to kiss each other none stop, with Maddie slightly unbuttoning his collared shirt.

"You know" Toby said in between kisses, "Emotional involvement with a nurse can be the best medicine for any man, does your boss understand that?" and kissed her neck.

Her breathe in pinning sighs, Maddie answered, "Only for you, baby," and rushed her fingers through his hair.

Maddie looked at her watch, 1:30pm..._damn_.

"Crap."

"What?" asked Toby stroking Maddie's hair.

"I have to go, Tob. Richmond is expecting me back."

"Why don't you call your boss and tell him you're out for the day. Thursday anyway and hot."

"You are too much," and pulled him closer so they laid on the desk.

They could just about hear the two other guys coming back in from their breaks. Both of them ceased their kisses and caresses. Toby leaned up again a shelf of papers and books on the table trying fix her hair as best she could. Maddie laid back on his shoulder and she tapped her lips on his. For a few minutes they sat together as Maddie played with his hair and traced her hands down Toby's toned chest and stomach. This gave Toby a ticklish feeling and made him bury his face in her chest more.

Looking up at her, "Why can't Rich give you two hours break?"

"Cause man number 2 is waiting for me...all day I'm with him, remember?"

"God that sounds perverse, but yeah you're right. Just don't fall for any of his excuses. One wrong word and he'd off his rocker again."

"Don't worry," Maddie said kissing him and cuddling with Toby for another five minutes.

Maddie got up from the table and walked to the door of the store and looked back at Toby. His shirt was still unbuttoned and his hair slightly disheveled. He ran his hand through to make into movie star style. Toby then got up from the table and proceeded to show her one of his special clothing types. Maddie loved seeing his black wife beater underneath his clean cut appearance.

"See you when I see you."

"Dinner at Da Vinci's 7pm? Cause I get out at 5:30pm."

Toby nodded and crouched down on the counter so she could only see his eyes playfully joking around with her.

"You are such a kid at heart, Toby! When are you going to grow up?"

"I am. You encouraged me more so," and rested his head in his arms folded on the counter.

"Bye bye, love! See ya lateh!"

Toby gazed at her leaving the shop, his eyes shifted from her shoulders to her legs.

"Um, Mister? My husband is looking for his Rolex watch you repaired," an older woman with her husband interjected trying to get Toby's attention.

"_Back to work again." _

**May 30****th**** 1964 9am – Los Angeles Insane Asylum **

"Well he's been a lot more at ease when I've brought him his breakfast. He seems to be withdrawing a bit more from the crowd though since his episode with me," said Hayden.

"Really?" asked Maddie.

"Yeah I mean I've tried coaxing him that things will be fine next meal time but he won't listen to me. Richmond has sent more orderlies to watch his room intently. Maybe you should talk to him more."

"Alright, I'll let you know when I need help, you just focus on tending to the others' needs."

"Of course, girlfriend."

Hayden and Maddie developed a secret hand-shake consisting of hand clapping and thumbs spinning in circles and spitting on the ground. Dr. Richmond could never understand it, but let them permitted the charade outside his office amid the many nurses disgust.

Norman waited for Maddie to come. After a while, this was a very different Maddie from whom he met years before. This Maddie seemed less fleeting, less deceptive sounding, and more at ease. He himself was just the same way, except for the illness for which blinded him from seeing things not worth seeing in a million years. Repeatedly he would be told never to go with her or disaster was sure to come, everyday was a chore to get past a door or hallway without being judged by his mother. Medication was never his strong suit and sometimes it had adverse effects on him like making him drowsy during the day so they opted for more psychotherapy, group talk, and walks around the asylum especially outside.

_"Where is going to take me today? I'm not usually allowed outside that often. _

He decided on a long sleeve gray shirt and thin cropped white pants and Keds. He slicked his hair in his usual style and waited for her to arrive. Pondering over his thoughts of what he could potentially talk about. Talking for long periods of time with women was never his strong suit, or perhaps Mother never let him. For what was a woman? This mysterious creature that could love you and break your heart at any moment? There must be something more...

_"We'll see," _he thought.

Maddie opened the door, "! Good morning, Norman!"

"Good morning! So, Richmond told me that they're changing my schedule a bit?"

"Yes, now we are going to include more outdoors sessions with you."

"Outdoors? But I'm not allowed."

"Who says so?"

"Moth-"

"Your mother?"

Norman turned away in defeat, he didn't want to believe she was gone. He could hear her in the distance mockingly laughing at him. Her lover entered his mind, the two of them kissing passionately. The night Norman eyed her, betraying the love that once was...

"Norman?"

He suddenly snapped back from the vision, "Yes? I-I-I ah-my mother yes."

"She said no?"

Norman ran a hand through his hair again and sat on the bed with both his hands to his face.

"You know I haven't been taking the medication, don't you? I messes with my head, I makes me paralyzed, and it doesn't mean I want to hear her voice. I can't help it."

"I know you can't. Which is why I think it's better if we go outside, no matter what she says."

Norman got up from the bed and took Maddie's hand, for some reason every time they went anywhere he held her hand, like a lost, confused child.

"See not so bad walking around a different wing to get to the outside court yard?" Maddie insinuated.

Norman looked around at the doors and nurses managing the different patients, some with more severe conditions than he had which needed more reinforcement.

"I've never been back in the court yard before. Is it pretty?"

"Very. You won't be disappointed. We even have a maze for patients to cool off and run around in."

"Great! I always used to run up and down the stairs at the mansion and slide down the cinderblocks. Mother always risked me getting scratches on my knees or behind."

"That's interesting."

"And um, a friend of mine, I can't remember his name, used to go kite flying with me out in the desert area near the swamp."

"That must have been a trip! Here we are."

Maddie opened the double door that led out to the court yard. The bushes were neatly trimmed into animal shapes of fish, dogs, and cats. Two grand willow trees made their prominence known on the court yard property. One guarded the entrance to the maze and the other was in the distance along a lake which a rocky road path snaked its way down hill toward it.

"We've been inside for far too long," Norman said looking around at the property and turned his gaze to the maze.

"You're absolutely right," Maddie said, "Let's go sit down on the grass. We'll get to the maze another day."

Norman seemed a bit saddened, for he really desired to run around and breathe again. To feel the rush, the nostalgia for anything positive, to bring back sweet memories and cloud off those perverse and unnatural things. Maddie and Norman sat on either side of a long white bench. There were other patients in the distance some with nurses and others with family members beside them for counseling. Why couldn't he have any family for support? Though there was someone, someone his Mother never spoke of much, an elusive woman of the Bates family...

"Okay, let's start with question 1: Have you still been getting headaches?" asked Maddie.

Norman watched her cross her legs, "Oh you know, the usual. Only in the morning and evening I do."

"Why is that?"

"Mother doesn't exactly like it if I don't begin and end my day without thinking of her. She feels like I'll have...have...ah- I can't think of the word, it's horrible to say."

"Abandoned her?"

Norman turned away from Maddie for a minute and looked at her from the corner of his eye.

"Don't say that word."

"Why not?"

"It invokes so much pain in me you have no idea."

"Of course I do, please tell me."

"Do you promise you won't tell anyone?"

Maddie nestled over the bench closer to Norman and answered, "Promise."

He smiled and returned his gaze back to her, "Abandonment is just...awful. The worst feeling in the world. It's like...you feel naked, helpless, no one can help you anymore. You're just gone, no one there for you."

"Like what you did to Marion Crane?"

Norman's eyes became glassy, Maddie almost could see tears, "I can only imagine, Norman, really I could."

"How is that?"

"Well, I really shouldn't divulge a lot of my personal criminal history, but I felt kind of at a loss once I was jailed. I lost all of my friends, prized gang members I knew since public school. When I got convicted, they thought I turned against them to have them killed so I'd exert more power in the gang. The gang wasn't built on killing people mind you. Once they learned of my connections to the Chaperone, they wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I wanted to play the gang to get extra kicks for my future leadership in the "family."

"That's terrifying."

Maddie and Norman looked down at the grass, kicking their shoes nonchalantly against it, skipping small stones.

"The truth is we're both flawed, Norman. Everyone is flawed. No escaping it."

"But Mother..."

"Even your Mother. Please Norman remember SHE too was flawed."

Norman shook his head and clasped his hands on the bench and looked down.

"Norman, I've told a painful piece of my mind. Deranged and dark my involvement with the gang and the Chaperone. It tore my parents to pieces. Let me inside yours."

"Maddie, you know perfectly well, there are places in my mind where you can't go. Where no one should EVER go."

"I used to feel the same way. You have to be willing to talk about these events, Norman. It's the only way we can get you through this and to move on with your life and get you home."

"WHERE IS HOME? Tell me that? You know what I heard, there's a "FOR SALE" sign at the motel and mansion. They won't let me back. No one's bought it ever since my incarceration. The place has developed a bad name, but I belong there, Maddie. It's the only place I'm safe, where she's safe."

"Norman, your Mother's dead. Her corpse has been returned to Greenlawn cemetery next to your father if that makes you feel any better."

He looked back at her again and began to tear up.

"No, no, no, she can't be gone...she's here with me. Inside me look," Norman said and pointed toward his heart.

Maddie shook her head in disbelief, what the hell was she doing with him. For a moment she felt like Toby slightly "fathering" if Maddie ever had one of her tiny fits with a problem.

_If Norman continued to be incorrigible, what was the point of getting him cured?_

He certainly didn't believe it. But patience and time were still on her side. Norman got up from the bench and walked down to sit at the edge of the sloping hill looking up at the sky.

"Maddie, I haven't felt this free in a long time," he said.

"I can understand that."

Norman turned back and motioned her to come.

"I don't bite if you're that hesitant."

Maddie felt ashamed of herself, she wasn't allowed to trust him or any of the patients on the ward.

"Fine, don't come. Stick to your procedures in keeping distance from me," he said distastefully.

She had to improvise or think of something before things got ugly. Hopefully not too ugly like before.

"Norman why don't we go back inside, maybe you can help me do your laundry," Maddie interjected.

"I'd like that," he said smiling and got up and walked back over to Maddie, continuing to hold her hand.

"Why do always do that?"

"My mother always used to hold my hand if I was scared, uncertain of something, or overwhelmed by new places."

Maddie blushed and held his hand tighter. She decided not to include that detail in the report to Richmond. Feeling some accomplishment in today's session, maybe there was a chance, but rocky roads had to be conquered in the process for Norman. Though he never admitted it, he was finally ready too. Norman and Maddie took down clothes to the laundry room of the assigned ward. The place was strictly only for staff and assistants, but Maddie believed this would give Norman more exposure to people. It was something he was familiar with anyway from the motel, changing linens compulsively, she learned from their prior sessions together.

The women nurses eyed him suspiciously but then immediately turned away. One nurse couldn't help but notice his shoulders, hips, and eyes. Her friend slapped her arm telling possibly "no and to get back to work." Norman looked back at Maddie uneasily, "Madeline, I feel silly. Maybe this isn't a good idea. Why were those women watching me?"

"Because you know why?"

"Why?"

"You are cute."

"Cute?"

"Yes, cute, you heard me."

Norman had never fathomed what was adorable about him. He was a lanky, dark haired and boyish, although shy.

"But I, but Mother..."

"Don't think about your mother, think about these chores we're doing. It'll make you feel more at ease and then we can go back to your room."

"Alright, let's start."

As Maddie and Norman began to fold clothes, the nurses began to giggle and whisper slightly about him.

"Don't judge me. He puts the "Hot" in psychotic! I wish my husband had his cheekbones," an older nurse replied, while the other nurses shushed her, throwing a couple of shirts in the washing machine.

Norman glanced beyond his shoulder, the older nurse winking at him. He anxiously turned his head back to folding clothes and Maddie gave him a thumbs up sign.

"Thank you, Maddie."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapt. 6 – Happy Thoughts

**Wednesday June 13****th ****1964 - Norman's Room – 4:30pm **

Maddie took out some flash cards and began quizzing Norman on pictures that he viewed. It was all the patient's interpretation of what he or she saw. The responses to many of these pictures became all the more repetitive, but she didn't mind.

"It looks like blood splotches," he said.

"Okay," Maddie remarked.

"Why is it okay? It's disgusting."

"I know it is. But I'm just putting it down in my notes as something that probably you'll improve upon with regard to gearing you toward healthier thoughts."

Norman looked down at his shoes briefly and then sat up straight again. Maddie after a few trials with the cards put them away to start a new activity, one that she pressured Richmond into accepting.

"What is that?" asked Norman.

"It's called meditation. It's when you sit down in any place you feel comfortable and just close your eyes and relax."

"Relaxing?"

"Yes, you've probably relaxed many times when you were alone at the motel."

"I used to do that...that is...until _she_ got demanding on me."

"Well, now is the time to clear your mind."

"How? Maddie, I don't think this is a good idea. I've never been the best with calming myself or having control of anything."

"This is different. Just trust me on this, I know it's gonna work. I mean psychotherapy is one, but this is a time for us to just ease and peruse our thoughts and just breathe. This isn't anything creepy or weird. And with all due respect to your Mother's wishes, _intimate and strange_."

Norman gestured for Maddie to come closer to him on the bed. She stood still as Norman began to frown.

"I feel most comfortable with these trials sitting on the bed. I hate the cold floors."

Maddie folded her arms impatiently.

"If you feel like something terrible will happen to you, it won't now. But if you feel that paranoid about me, just go away and not try with me anymore, it's no use," Norman answered bewildered.

"I'm not supposed to do this, Norman."

"Are you just saying this out of your training in keeping distance from patients or is there something else I don't know about from you?"

Maddie walked over the window and placed a hand on her chin, stroking it slightly.

"I didn't mean to pry," he said.

"What exactly is your concern about my wellbeing? You are the _patient_, _I'm_ watching and trying to help _you_. I'll divulge whatever is relevant to the situation not that you would care that is."

"You're just like the other nurses I've worked with. They have no compassion for me or do they wish to know me. Everyone thinks I'm some kind of animal. They don't come from the same circumstances you come from. Where you come from seems like a bridge to the underworld."

"What are you insinuating?"

"You've always been reluctant to bring up your past dealings with men. Isn't that the group you...hurt, the most, according to Richmond. This Chaparone...who coached you. I've asked you several times about it, but you brush it aside."

"What's that supposed to mean? I have a boyfriend for heaven's sake. I wouldn't have gotten engaged to him if I hated him. We're going to be happily married in July. You for one won't be invited, don't want to risk Mommy Dearest from ruining it."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Look it's none of your frickin' business what did to those guys. Guys are dumbass pricks who think they know everything about everyone, especially thinking they can score points with any random chick they see. Who are you to say what I did was wrong, at least I didn't KILL them! Let's just sit down and try to clear our minds, understand? Maybe some memory will jog before we can say, 'Mother, may I.'"

Norman looked up at the clock on the wall of the room, "How much time do we need?"

"Twenty minutes. Usually whenever I get tired during the day I take twenty minute naps. I oddly enough feel better and reenergized to do more, interesting how our minds and bodies work."

Both Norman and Maddie sat up straight and put their hands on their knees, closing their eyes, legs pretzel style.

"What do I do now?" asked Norman.

"Try to think of something happy, any happy memory or scheme of sequences, Norman. I know this is going to be difficult, but you have to push yourself. It's only way it will work."

"Alright..." and began to sift through the past.

Immediately the first thing he thought of was his mother. But she was cruel and abusive toward him, deprived him of everything, yet he loved her deeply. He could hear her feeble voice whispering in the background, making him flinch. What good if any good was in her? If there was kindness, it was only jokes, name calling, and ironic statements to make him falsely happy in a tricky or comforting situation.

_Think. Think. _

There had to be something, _anything_ that could appear.

_**It was a bright summer day, end of August, his birthday had just passed the week before. He was no more than four. **_

_**A picnic table was assembled, a family was in a park near Phoenix, AZ. Parents and children abided the playground area. Everyone around caught up with each other after hard hours at work. It was the Great Depression and people were still struggling despite the various New Deal Programs. **_

_**There appeared a man, who looked like someone Norman saw from a past dream, a familiar presence, warm-hearted and humble, that he nearly forgot of at home...the smell of his cologne, when he'd come from work...**_

Nerves and veins began to pulse slightly in his head as the sequence continued.

_**"Come on, Norman! Let's play catch. I'll throw it just right for you," the man remarked.**_

_** "Okay! Mommy, can you take a picture of us?" the four year old asked jovially. **_

_** "Anything for you, honey," a tall, brunette long haired woman said cheerfully and dear...Her floral dress and red-movie starlet hat complimented each other well. **_

Norman began to wince slightly, his hands shaking.

"Norman what's wrong?" asked Maddie.

"I-I-I-Ah-AH-it's...

_**She got out the camera and snapped a quick photo of Norman just about catching the baseball from this man, John, his mother called him. The man's lanky body stature mirrored Norman's to T. About in his late twenties, he had slicked back hair, a comical, Charlie Chaplin moustache and bold, piercing black eyes. **_

_** "He is very agile, Norma. I'd sign him up for sports in the future. I'm so proud of him."**_

His screams were faint in the distance, but he was lost in this memory...

_**Norman ran over to the swings where the other children were. Inquisitive and adventurous he was, the whole world at his hands. The couple followed him to the playground talking happily amongst themselves. Then the sequence shifted to one back at the mansion. He heard them up in the master bedroom and snuck slightly so as not to make a noise. He peered through the wooden door. They were in bed together, slightly undressed. Unfamiliar to the mores of adulthood, the whole scene intrigued the toddler immensely, one he'd never forget. **_

_**"Norma, if anything happens to one of us, ANYTHING AT ALL. We'll do our best to protect him." **_

_** John looked at Norma and saw a couple of tears streaming from her eyes. His long hands wiped them away so she could catch her breathe. **_

_** "Yes, John, ANYTHING, you know that," Norma looked up at John, with sincere eyes. **_

_**John put his hands to her face again, "Do you know how much I love you more than anything in this scatter brained, mad world?" **_

_** They kissed each other for seconds on end. Norman wished he could join in the fun, his legs becoming shaky from kneeling down too much on the wooden floor and carpets. **_

_**"Always and forever," Norma said and continued to caress and kiss John more. **_

_** Norman burst open the door. The couple mortified, pulling up the covers to their chests, and he said, "Hey! Why were your faces like that? What's going on?" **_

There were deathly screams in the background. Reality was coming back to him.

"NORMAN, SNAP OUT OF IT! STOP!"

Norman opened his eyes. He was laying out on the cold titled floor. Maddie was holding him down from breaking the mirror to his sink which already had a small crackle from a prior punch.

"What the hell was that? I told you to think of something happy, not sad or upsetting. And thinking of your mother will only bring you pain. Do you understand?" Maddie reprimanded.

"I know. I know, Madeline. I just can't help it. Please understand, you can't help me with that. But there was another person."

"Who?"

"My father."

Norman proceeded to tell Maddie about the dream.

"I don't know where those memories came from. It just appeared out of nowhere. I haven't thought of my father in, well, EVER. Richmond mentioned him once when I first came here five years ago, but that was it. Mother...she's not, no she wasn't, she was never...I don't remember her ever being like this. It's like she was a whole different person then."

"Maybe she was, Norman and you've just forgotten it."

"My parents...they took me to all these special places, mostly parks and we'd go on adventures and explore bushes and forests together. There were barely any restrictions on us on where we could go. I mean I was on my best behavior all the time. Very few times did I ever remember hearing my parents argue. And rarely was I ever scolded to especially by Mother. I never used to understand why my parents would hold each other tight or tell me to go away for a while, just so they would have 'time' together."

"Every little kid has those questions about Mommy and Daddy. It's not being trashy or dirty with your body or anyone else for that matter, it's called being an adult and enjoying your romantic partner or spouse. One time I also burst open the door while my parents were in the middle of the 'act.' I was seven then and I thought they were hurting each other (*chuckles*). I ran back to my room and got two pillows and started screaming and hitting for them to stop. You can say it scarred me hilariously for life. The guys in my former gang got a kick out of it when I first told them!"

Maddie kept laughing and was expecting a reaction from Norman as the same. He turned his away in shame as if the very thought of it scared him, possibly as a mere mental picture. He would certainly be punished for thinking of such things.

"Not the way she put it."

"Didn't she love your father?"

"Yes, of course she did. When he died it caused too great a loss for her."

"Then how do you explain her abuse against you?"

"I can't."

"Something must have happened to Norma to make her turn so drastically to abuse against you. It's like every year, it potentially got worse and worse. Ever thought of that?"

Norman looked out toward the window and muttered, "No, never. She never told me anything as long as I can remember. Not even her childhood. Whenever she'd go into rants and anger fits, she'd never explain why she acted the way she did. I guess it eventually rubbed off on me."

"Did she ever talk about John?"

"No, she didn't. I suspected she never really got over his death. No one does really once they've lost a loved one. Every time I'd mention his name, even one of his possessions she'd rave on me and tell me to go away. After a while, a special relationship began to brew between us. The two of us living like there was no else in the world. I kind of became a surrogate lover for her amid her and my loneliness. She needs me and I too need her."

"I understand _that _part well. But there's just something else, no one just becomes a certain way without something traumatic happening to them in the past or if they do, then that person is desperate for something, or they don't care, or they just want a personality change. Human nature at its core and duality. John Bates's death seems like a significant part of it, but who was involved in his death and Norma's background before she married him carries weight. Does she have family, friends? Are your grandparents alive?"

Norman paused and looked back at Maddie, frowning slightly and put his hands frustratingly in his pockets. Maddie was somewhat amused at the way he did those certain gestures gracefully. He gazed at her more and saw her smiling as he did that.

"I...don't know. Maybe. If she did, she never talked about him or her. The two of us just had each other, nothing more, as I just assumed."

"You never saw anything that was potentially hush-hush? Something she told you never to lay eyes on or go into a particular room?"

"Well...'dirty' magazines was one..."

"That's not what I meant. Her abuse is an after effect of something or someone."

Maddie waited for him to get his thoughts together.

"...There was ONE picture I found when I was eight. But she caught me in the end because she heard me from the stairs. I was inside her room and looked in the drawers of the wooden dresser because at first I wanted to see how women apply makeup."

"What was the picture of?"

"It looked like my grandparents. They all died before I was born. I had always wanted to see who they were as people, but she'd always yell at me or tell me to change the subject. And the other person next to her had to be her sister."

"Your aunt? I thought you said you didn't have any more family or support."

"That's what I thought you'd say."

"She never mentioned her either, huh? No conversations, no reminiscing, or doll house building, double dates? You never had contact with your aunt?"

"Nothing. No one, just Mother. Actually once I found the photograph, Mother grabbed me and sent me to my room and burned the picture from outside the house. Windows are like enlarged telescopes, loved peering outside in the distances. As clingy and demanding Mother was of possessions of the mansion and myself, she certainly liked to burn things. Anything I said or asked of her past, she burnt. I remember finding just the photograph, a doll my grandparents gave her, a picture of kitten, an old employment contract to my father's car dealer ship business (she met him there) and other things from grade school."

"Peculiar, VERY peculiar. It's like she was hiding something from you. Maybe she was trying to act tough and domineering, like some great defense mechanism, to hide some sort of weakness or secret. Men AND women are complex creatures, Norman. I think, I really do now, that Norma Bates doesn't seem like the woman you thought you knew."

Norman began to furrow his eyebrows slightly, "What do you mean?"

"I don't think you know the _half_ of her life story."

"No, Maddie. She was always like that. I can't remember a day say for those up until I was five that she was even tempered with me. Even though she insulted and kept me away from people, we were still loyal to each other."

"You were loyal to her. Not the other way."

"STOP IT! Don't bring it up! I don't want to talk about her."

Maddie knew what he was getting at and this would probably be saved for later, probably when he was ready to confront it eventually. She of course thought otherwise as to her withdraw symptoms still with joints and resisting tempts to join the gang again.

"Fine, Norman. But you have to be willing to delve into your mother's past."

"But that's who she is."

"Norman, you know the person who was speaking to you all these years since her death isn't your real mother. Norma was her own person with a past."

"You really care not for my feelings about her, do you?"

"It's the only way we can get you through this and get you cured. We have to break the ice and see beyond what is given. Your mother can't speak for herself as to the way she treated you, so the only way is to piece through the memories and talk with people."

"You must be joking. No one is going to talk to us. I know no one, I have no friends. No relations, nothing."

"Well, I have to attend to some meetings with Richmond on that one and you have to do your part in recalling as many memories, the good, bad and ugly of your mother, your relationship with her, how you felt, and how you came to murder her, the real deal, as painful as it is. You have to stand up for yourself and fight for your life. Ever patient here is doing the same, so use these moments and opportunities while you can while you're still young."

Never in all his years of existence, had a woman like Maddie spoken the most passionate, say for his mother. One could always talk the talk, but walk the walk? His mother never gave him guidance on any matter of championship and would only credit herself and not his efforts for many things. Babying him constantly even as a teenager.

_People don't always mean well by what they say _his mother told him one day.

"I'll never forget those memories, Maddie. I think they've become sort of dear to me now. To see both my parents. I never knew my father much, but this...I-I..."

"I don't know what this means either, Norman or what your mind is telling you. But we'll get to the bottom of this."

"She loved me, I'll always love her, but she loved my father. Yet, she was cruel and uncaring to me. It's love-hate."

"I'm sure she was, Norman. Now you see what we have to do?"

Norman stood up straight and gazed at Maddie more, "Yes. I'm just...afraid. Something will trigger me and hurt you again."

"Norman, we made a promise, remember? You'd never EVER hurt me."

"I can't do this, if this is what these sessions are doing to me."

Norman faced his back away from Maddie and began to walk up to the mirror again. Maddie came up behind him and put her arms around his waist. Unsure of what she was doing, nestled her head on his right arm. Norman looked to the side at her and began to pull away.

"I don't know what came over me. Forget it, Norman," Maddie remarked.

Norman stepped closer and held her hands, "Tell me about your memory."

Maddie felt guilty still about her involvement with the gang. But how could a person like Bates understand her? He was crazier than she was. She couldn't trust him. Even when she told Toby about her past she'd sense him borderline insensitive about her. Just as he didn't want to talk about those two women. Closed-minded they both were. People were only used as a means to an end, dishonest and ambitious to reach her goal. Bates was no exception, he could kill her at any minute.

"Fine. You what I thought about, going back to gang banging. I enjoyed taking pleasure in manipulating everyone. You men in particular are such spiteful, selfish, attention-whoring, competitive, and gullible creatures. I liked using my innocent, beautiful face my parents blessed me with to disguise my true intentions. Deviancy knows many an individual. I think I'm gifted of having one of those faces you just can't help believing. A brilliant liar like yourself," Maddie laughed manically.

Norman was horrified and stepped away from Maddie, for he too spoke those very words the night Arbogast came to inspect the motel property. Hypocrisy plagued the whole dwelling area, no escaping sinfulness of the past.

Norman continued to listen to her banter still, "I loved committing vandalism, I loved playing those guys' emotions, I loved saying shit about people, I loved taking joints, and I loved trying to be a part of the 'family.' The Chaperone was my hero, the godfather of all those mobster clans in the whole damn country. I was going to do anything it could to get me there and use you as the final bait so I could steal the money and get out leaving you in the fucking dust, man."

Maddie attempted to catch her breath but started coughing up spit.

"That's not a happy memory," Norman said sternly, trying to remain composure.

"For me it is," Maddie said, "I've been craving it for months. I feel like, like, a joint. Give me one."

"Maddie, I can't get joints."

"I don't care, I really don't care. I can't stand it. I'm sweating on the inside. I need one... You make me nervous all the time, I need one...I-I-I-I feel like I'll scream if I don't."

"You aren't yourself."

"You kidding, I'm most definitely myself. All I need a frickin' joint to make myself feel better to resist the gang, I have nobody else for that matter."

"Mother hated smoking, drinking, and drugs."

"One thing she taught you right."

Norman was at a loss, for this was his nurse and already she was relapsing. He could never figure out which mania was worse to be in, **misogynistic** and **obsessed** or **misandric **and **addicted**. He and the nurse, polar opposite personalities of the same coin of folly. What hope was there for him? He didn't have the strength to speak up to Richmond. His beloved psychiatrist could throw him out at any second. The blame game would a simple one: Norman supposedly coaxed her back into her criminal ways, despite getting employed at the asylum. He wasn't an expert on anything except running a motel and taxidermy. How would he know how to answer to a young woman's ailments? Specifically substance abuse. Mother certainly never encouraged it and if she did it was only for her wellbeing. Greedy and selfish and indulgent she became of his services to her as he were a slave. Feelings from hatred to compassion ran through him and he could scream for Hayden to come and relieve him. Why couldn't he take his eyes off this poor, tortured nurse? He too had been thinking of her all these years. The more vengeful and upset she became, the more intrigued and mesmerized Norman was toward her. Something distinguished Maddie, characteristics his mother never expressed... _**inescapable**_ _**vulnerability and sincerity, **_and_**honesty...these emotions expressed dangerously, forbidden, boldly and raw **_that never seemed forced unlike his mother. The way Maddie's eyes moved and her body language encapsulated him from anything else. Maddie sat down on the bed crying into the sheets. Her face was dark red and was sweating from her brow. Running a hand through his hair, Norman cautiously came up, sat beside her and began to hold her tight.

"What are you doing?" Maddie asked, "You can't do this to me. It's against staff-patient conduct. Let me go!"

"You need it. You aren't well still."

"But, your mother."

"I can't think anymore today. _Please_ don't cry, Maddie."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

Norman and Maddie looked back at each other straight faced and deadpanned.

"From now on, because I want to protect you. From yourself."

"We both do, remember that," she said reluctantly, "I swear Toby and Richmond are gonna have my head."

"Let's not think about them," Norman muttered and remembered what he told her about his mother moments before, contradiction in his statements was of no surprise.

"Alright," she said softly and grasped his arms around her.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Just writing a correction down. Hayden said you were 32 than 31 now. Your birthday is in August."

"Oh...thanks," he said as he continued to hold her.

Maddie's breath became steady, as Norman continued to look out the window ominously as if something dreadful was going to come upon him. After a while the clock chimed for 5:30pm. The piano music playing lightly out the door over the loudspeaker.

"_Time for her to go home." _

And he watched her leave out of the small window of the door.

**Same Day – 8pm – Lila's House **

Lila began to walk up the stairs to her two bedroom home in Tucson. She had promised Marion that before the year was up she was going to find a new house for them. Their dream castle, potentially to attract suitors in the area. They could start a new life together and find better jobs in Tucson since Lila did some employment scouting.

_"I don't know if I'm ready to move yet, Lila," Marion said. _

_"I'm pursuing this Marion. It's for the good of both of us to get out of Phoenix. This town holds too many memories of mother and father. Besides they would want us to move on too. Live the American dream etc. I've checked out many bordering towns like Tucson. I need to make just enough money in the next six months and we can buy a place there," Lila said. _

_ "Well, you may be right. I wished Mr. Lowry would pay me more." _

_ "You will get a bonus, if you would just come in earlier at lunch times. Seriously what is taking you?" _

_They both stared at each other. _

The Crane sisters were as close as sisters get, like the Wicked Witches of the East and West. Undying loyalty and service to each other at any cost. They were each other's best friends, even shared the same friends. Marion was the more anxious and adventurous, impulsive one while Lila was more reserved, practical, and witty. As different in personalities as the sisters were, they were always at each other's side. Both extremely close to their parents.

Mr. Fredrick Crane was a former Marine and was employed in Phoenix as a construction worker. His wife, Marjorie Ann, was a homemaker and a devoted mother to her two daughters. Outspoken and sharped tonged as she was, Marjorie was always caring and understanding of people. Arguments would occasionally arise between Fred and her, which usually led to Marion and Lila fleeing up to their rooms begging for it to end. Money, family, etc. the usual matters would drive them crazy. Decisions and life choices were set in stone and nothing could change that. Traditional values of respectability, responsibility, and quick decision making were stressed. Patience wasn't exactly a trait that ran in the family, Marion and Lila inherited that well, despite the fact that Fred attempted many times to convince them.

"_Marj, it's your turn to pick up Marion from school. I need to contact the guys to work on another project. I won't be back until 6pm," he said. _

"_But, Daddy, the fair is going until 6pm. Marion and I want you to be there with us and Mommy," a ten year old Lila replied. _

_Fred shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't really been a present father much with the girls with regard to activities. His life was practically his work while Marj was home. _

"_Lila, you have to remember Daddy's work," Marj would say. _

_Lila would whimper a bit and run up to her room, wishing for more time in the day to spend with him. Supposedly, Fred would earn enough money so that when Lila and Marion reached their twenties, the construction company would give him more freedom. Marion would call it a cheap deal, but no other company provided better benefits. _

Whenever Fred was home, Marion would have equal opportunities with both her parents to connect. Lila was closer with her mother with regard to issues and behavior. Sometimes Fred would say that Lila was Marj's unofficial clone, a Mother's daughter. But this kept Lila company, when no one else could while Marion was out with older friends and boyfriends. When Fred died of mesothelioma, Lila became increasingly close with Marjorie. Both girls were at the tender ages of 14 and 11 when he died. Whenever family members passed away, including Fred, Marj tried as hard as she could to bring up positive aspects of Fred to make it seem as though he were alive to guide the girls through. What would he think of them getting employment, college, and family. Marj had no choice but to go out and work, usually bus driving for students with disabilities, while Marion and Lila drove themselves home.

Marriage was one aspect that never entered Lila's mind. She was perfectly content with a single life, though she was interested in boys. Her conservative clothing would give people the impression that she wasn't otherwise which prone her to bullying. She never had much taste in clothing or fashionable, snarky attitudes as the other girls in school. Marion tried to make Lila more a part of her group of friends, though when it came to boyfriends, it was Marion's territory and Lila was kept in the dark. She wished to know more of her sister's escapades and where she went late at night. But what would she know of dating or romance. No boy ever batted an eye or compliment toward Lila even if she dressed differently. Marjorie was becoming concerned with Marion's erratic change from boyfriend to boyfriend, but Marion always shrugged it off as just experimentation.

"_It isn't respectable, Marion," she said to her once. _

"_What do you mean, Mother?" Marion asked. _

_Marion and Lila always had conversations about anything their parents talked with them about, as a tight knit family. _

"_I want to be patient, restrained, and civilized in your conduct with men. You can't just take advantage and date whatever is lying around, Marion." _

"_I know, Mother." _

"_And besides, Lila tells me that I've found some unusual 'socks' in your room." _

"_WHAT? LILA! NO! I TRUSTED YOU NOT TO SAY A WORD!" _

"_Marion she has to know, I'm scared for you and I don't know where you go off to. Once I saw you in this shady hotel/motel place with a guy that's almost a good twenty years older that you," Lila said. _

_Marion sunk in her chair, defeated. _

"_You have disobeyed me, Marion, for the last time. No woman should be doing things inappropriate until they are appropriate at marriage. Do you understand?" Marj said. _

_ "Yes," Marion said. _

_ "Alright, how long have these escapades gone on?" _

_ "For five years." _

"_You are 19 years old and working. Focus on your job and then start worrying about marriage, it will turn up soon." _

Marj had passed away when Marion just started her job at Lowery's Real Estate and Lila got a job at the Music Maker's Store. Both still situated in Phoenix. Few family came, for Fred and Marj were only children, so family friends were last resorts. Lila of course was busy with work, while Marion continued to do one-night stands in various bars. Marion of course would lie to Lila that this never happened anymore. The affair with Sam Loomis came as a total surprise for Lila for matters of relationships barely turned up in conversation anymore. Despite Marion and Lila's social lives differing, they still found time once or twice a week to see each other.

With the inheritance money and Marion's and Lila's long earned money for the past ten years, a Tucson home would have been in order. Lila put on her pajamas and picked up a picture of her and the family from when she and Marion were tots.

"Times were just innocent, back then," Lila said and pressed the picture to her chest and began to cry steadily, "That man...Bates, he'll pay. He WILL pay."

Lila ceased her crying and cringed the sheets tightly, at the very thought of him. He murdered her sister in cold-blood for a lost cause to the deceased in his family which he wrought himself.

_Everyone has demons inside. We just act out or express what they are, that shape us into who we become_, Fred and Marj once said in a secret conversation Lila kept in her heart, as one of few words of wisdom from her parents.

"_How do I make him pay? I don't want to kill him," _Lila thought, though murder had crossed her mind several times.

She of course refused to tell Sam any of this. Yes, the idea was attractive, since he killed his mother and Marion, he deserved the same fate, Lila reasoned, why not?

"No, I won't stoop to his level. What would Marion want me to do?" Lila asked out loud.

Marion was never a fan of revenge on anyone. She rarely got angry at anything. Lila seemed to be the most stubborn and most impatient of the two. If anything disrupted or got in the way of the sisters, each one leapt at the opportunity to defend the other. If she was going to face Bates, Lila had to speak to him head on. Respectability as Marj prided herself on, would win Lila the battle against the maniac. What made Marion such a threat to kill her? Of course his mother was jealous, but it was Norman who acted out that jealous, which made him conscious of his actions. Mass projecting guilt would only take a person so far, Lila reasoned. Eventually we all crack, secrets and long held beliefs will crumble and she would win in restoring Marion's memory and dignity. All he would have to do would be to confess his sins, simple as that. Lila had been to church many times more than Marion. Everyone has secrets and all have faults in the end we are all welcomed back in the Kingdom of Heaven, she remembered Fred telling her at the foot of her bed at night.

"I won't kill him," Lila said, "Instead, I'll crack him, till he bows before me and then he'll understand. I'll crack him till it hurts. Why kill when you can belittle people in accepting their faults till they scream and cry in torture."

Lila held a theory that men were much more sensitive to insecurity and broken heartedness than women, she intended to use it on Bates next time, whether Sam liked it or not. _Make him wish he was sorry_, Lila thought, _and maybe he'll get a smack or kick out of me, so he'll see what women are made of_.

Lila held a pillow close to her face and pulled it tight. Loneliness was everything she could have asked for. She was well settled with her job and loved all different types of music, especially young peoples of today strangely enough. As she closed her eyes, the young man from the watch shop suddenly entered her mind. He seemed caring and well-meaning and wanted to talk to her more. She did find him quite attractive with his toned chest and stomach, wide eyes, and blonde-brown wavy hair...

"_No,"_ she thought, _"there must be a more responsible and respectable way of expressing desire and crushes on people. And besides he's engaged. Mother and Father wouldn't approve, obviously. He's taken already and will be married soon."_

Affairs she knew too well from Marion were horrid ways to start marriage after another. She'd take him as a friend, a close friend, possibly if he was open to it. As for other such feelings of desire and sensuality, there seemed to be none at the moment Lila convinced herself. Believing in successfulness and belonging were the only goals Lila had in store for herself as the year would progress on.

**June 30****th**** 1964 – Sam's Hardware Store – 9am **

"Bob, it's time for me to mind the counter," Sam said.

"Oh, okay, Sam. I got some paperwork to do in the back anyway," Bob answered and moved back to the other room, closing the door.

Tool making and engineering were professions that ran strong in Sam's family. He came from a well-off lower middle class household in Fairvale, where his family lived for generations. The hardware store was also permanent, as his father ran it along with his grandfather and great-grandfather and so on. Sam only had his parents as best friends he'd say for the pains of being an only child. The Loomis family despite being slightly less than wealthy were well known in Fairvale for their gregarious attitude and workmanship with various citizens. Many acquaintances, yet few close friends, since everyone knew everyone's business. Sam would help his father, Sam Loomis Sr., in the hardware store, while his mother, Suzanne, was a homemaker. Like Norman, Sam was very much a mother's boy. If Suzanne was ever in distress or someone said something hurtful, Sam would pretend to be her knight in shining armor and reassure her that everything would be alright. He shared many of her social and political views, despite his father telling him to be more independent in thinking. For the first five years of his life, Sam was scared and intimidated by his father, making him cling more toward Suzanne. Through gradual softness, honest, vacationing, and father-son bonding Sam became more comfortable and trusting with him. He loved him very much and do anything for him. He used to love kayaking and mountain climbing. Sam insinuated after high school coming to work for him, but his father said that a college education nowadays was more paramount. Norman would come to visit all the time before he went home to Norma. The two of them taking turns with building and inventions. Sam Sr. loved Norman to bits and so did Suzanne, even telling him she'd take him in any minute as a new surrogate son, but Norman would deny anything wrong at home. Sam Sr. once told Norman that Norma tried hitting on him while at the grocery store, trying to persuade him several times to leave Suzanne. Norman immediately denied his mother would do such things, not in her rigidness and strict behavior, she was everything to him, leaving Sam's parents shaking their heads in dismay.

The past was all behind him and Sam's only choice was to focus on the present. Getting wrapped up in the past only caused him more pain. Marion...his only chance of stability...gone. Why did his best friend have to kill her? What did she do to him? Nights had gone by since that fateful day when they found the corpse of his mother, and Arbogast and Marion's bodies in the swamp. This was the true nature of his friend. No lies or deceit, brutally honest and...evil. His friend was evil through and through, showing no remorse for Lila or the Crane family loss or pain. Killers had no feelings, no concepts of true love, chasing after delusions of graders and self-fulfillment to attain a means to an end. He couldn't trust him or communicate with him anymore. The love of his life vanquished forever, murderous revenge seemed imminent, surely his best friend thought the same. An eye for an eye...

As Sam organized more tools and processed chemicals for bug sprays/exterminators, he muled over more of him and Norman's close, inseparable friendship. If he wanted to him, then Sam would stooping to same level as him, he knew better than to resort to such thoughts. Everyone had the capability to be corrupted, like Marion with the stolen money. It was easy to sin, but to walk in the lighted path was another ordeal that required commitment, but what would he know of commitment? Sam himself strayed from the strong bond of marriage in pursuing Marion when his wife was devoted and faithful to him despite being the slightest clingy. Dishonest and cheap he felt with his body now. Those hours of teaching fidelity and chastity from his parents. Sam turned his focus back to Norman:

**December 2, 1944 **

_"You sure Mother won't know we slept over your house?" asked a twelve year old Norman Bates. _

_ "I'm sure! You don't live that far away. She'll understand," said a thirteen year old Sam Loomis. _

_ "Alright, gee, everyone seems busy as ever. When do think the war will be over?"_

_ "No idea, but your mother should have you stay for more after school activities. I wrote like 12 cards to the soldiers supposedly stationed in Okinawa." _

_ "Whoaaaaaaa, cool. I'll ask her, sounds like fun. Listen your dad should take us to see a Disney short at the local theater." _

_ "DISNEY. I feel like a kid!" _

_ "We are kids, Samuel!" _

_ "Jinx, made you look!" _

_ Both boys pushing each other back and forth, running down the dirt road together. The world at their hands, all for the taking and conquering they once said on another play date Norman's home the year they first met. _

_**1938-1942**_

_Sam was playing out at recess with his other friends. Since elementary school (Fairvale elementary housed Grades Kindergarten to 3__rd__ Grade), Sam could never understand why this one particular boy was so silent and withdrawn. Other boys would always make fun of him, 'wimp,' 'momma's boy,' 'dirt face.' But the boy always put up with it and retaliated with petty remarks that would occasionally get him a bruise on the eye. Though only a year apart from each other, the mysterious boy looked like he could be Sam's unofficial twin brother only more skinny and narrow faced. Whenever bullies would come upon him, Sam would possess urges to go and help him, but everyone said that it was bad luck to be associated with supposed rabble and weaklinks. Sam had his own group of sports geared children since his parents put him in junior football in the third grade. Some of his friends were a few of the bullies toward the boy. Sam wanted to help him so, but feared his lost friendships with those boys and girls. _

_ Starting in the second grade, the quiet, shy boy who he'd come to know as Norman Francis Bates began to have shared activities classes like Art, Recess, and Gym with him. If they ever talked it was only for assigned group activities and still his friends would taunt Sam for being partnered with a freak. At the end of each period, Norman would go crying out of the classroom and proceed to go toward the bathrooms. Sam told his parents about the nervous boy in his classes, and how some of Sam's friends treated him. Suzanne said that Sam should gradually start to look for new friends and people to hang out with. Sam Sr. said it was Sam's call to confront the bullies, strength and patience in words and approach took time. Standing up for one's peers one step in becoming more of a man. Friendships may or may not result in these encounters but at least he did the right thing. _

_ A few weeks into fourth grade, Fairvale Junior High, since the town only had a preschool, elementary school, middle school, and cube shaped high school, Sam was well adjusted to classes, teachers, and people. And there he was again in his activities classes...that eerie, saddened looking, awkward boy Norman Bates. Whenever the two would see each other, they'd eye each other for a few seconds and sit on opposite sides of the room. Norman alone at his own table and Sam with his football buddies. _

_ It was January 1943 and everyone was excited to get the year rolling again. Recess was a way to reenergize the minds for another half day of work, rote memorization, etc. Sam and his friends were playing kickball and four square together unusually roughly. Though Sam told them to calm down, since he was getting tired, they persisted. They were getting most people on the playground and black top to play with them. Norman suddenly came up and asked Sam if he could play kickball. This was first time, the two had ever spoken with each other on a mutual level than class work. Just Sam was about to answer one of his friends pushed Sam aside and told Norman to back off. Norman immediately obeyed and started to walk away with his head slouched. _

_ "Guys watch this!" one of Sam's other friends remarked. _

_ He ran up behind Norman and began beating him up and throwing stones at him. Though the boy was small, Sam's friends had adequate muscles for wrestling matches inflicting major blows. Sam had no choice and rushed over to his friend and started uncontrollably socking his head toward the ground. _

_ "ENOUGH! PLEASE, SCOTT! DON'T DO THIS ANYMORE TO HIM! IT HURTS ME! YOU HURT ME WHEN YOU DO THAT TO HIM! FRIENDS DON'T HURT OTHER PEOPLE! STOP!" Sam cried knocking his friend down for the last time. _

_ Scott got up and punched Sam in the nose, causing it to bleed instantly. Norman all battered up, underwear half showing from his pants knelt down to Sam. _

_ "I'm with him," said Norman, "Thank you, Sam," the sentence barely passed his lips. _

_ "Come on guys, we don't need bozos like Bates and Loomis ruining our fun," Scott said and Sam's other friends went inside. _

_ Sam and Norman laid on the blacktop until one of the school patrollers came to retrieve them due to a girl student's retelling of the incident. The boys were ushered into the nurse's office where they were situated next to each other. _

_ "Will you see your friends again?" asked Norman. _

_ "I don't want to talk about it, Norman. Luckily those were my football friends. I still have my four soccer people," Sam said weakly. _

_ "I didn't mean to pry." _

_ "No you didn't do anything. It's just that, I felt so guilty for ignoring you all those years. Letting my friends get away with the bullying." _

_ "That's sweet. I wished I had the words to say to them. I was going to fight back until you came in." _

_ "Really?" _

_ "Yeah." _

_ "My father always taught me that helping peers was one boy's first step in the journey toward becoming a real man." _

_ "I never my father much, so you can say I only have my mother." _

_ "Sorry...how come she never encourages you to fight back and speak up for yourself? You seem like you are alone or lost about something." _

_ Norman clenched his fists together, Sam didn't want to insight more pain in Bates. _

_ "I wish she would." _

_ "Mothers are supposed to be comforting, tender, and loving. I love my mother, I'm kind of an unofficial momma's boy, but I'm proud of it, Norman. No shame there I found out because Father said that there are Daddy's girls who think they are little princesses." _

_ "I wish I had answers to fighting against bullying. Either at home or at school I can't escape from it. You can say I'm used to it." _

_ "Why, Norman?" _

_ "My mother...She is a bully, too." _

"Sam! Sheriff Chambers!" Bob shouted.

Sam came out of the office, tucking his shirt in, and walked over to the middle of the hardware store.

"Hey, Sam, how is business here?" asked the portly Sheriff.

"Aw, it's fine, sir. Just taking one day at a time. We should have enough major sales going until August."

"Very good, very good, Loomis. Listen I have Lila in the car now. She told me her car broke down and had it tolled. She's been taking endless taxis to get up to Fairvale. She called me and I drove her here because she wanted to talk to you about something. Her car should be due to arrive here today if you mind?"

"Oh, no I don't mind, sir."

"Have you thought about your friend at all or gone up to see him?"

"He's not my friend, Sheriff," Sam said half-lying.

"Give it a chance, Sam, go up and see him, he might have changed."

"I'll consider it. I've been pondering it for a while anyway."

"Good, good. You both used to be tight as glue."

"We did, yeah..." Sam trailed off and smiled slightly.

"Well, I'm not gonna waste anymore of your time, let me get Lila. Call me if you have anymore concerns."

"I will. Thanks, Sheriff Chambers."

Lila stepped inside with a small petty coat in hand with a new curly, blonde haircut, and a green petite suit.

"Hey, what's going on, Lila?" asked Sam.

"I just wanted to come up and tell you some news. It turns out my suspicions were true the first time about Lowry and Cassidy. Remember when you said that the company didn't want to prosecute, that they just wanted the 40,000 back?" Lila said.

"Yes, why?"

"Well, it looks like there was more to the situation set up than met the eye. George Lowery Real Estate, specifically Lowery was keeping undeclared cash transactions in the back of his office. Specifically the 40,000 dollars to cash for Cassidy's daughter's house. There were many undeclared transactions from other wealthy clients. Many were for Cassidy's oil lease fields so he'd avoid as much tax exemption as possible. That's why he got to keep all or most of the money. Both men were sentenced to prison shortly after Marion's body was discovered. Two weeks after Marion's funeral, the citizens near the real estate business told the police that they saw something fishy there. Lowery obliged to have them examine the place and found the undeclared money in the process. Cassidy's oil lease company crashed after that as the police also found that his lease was also a prostitute hang out along with his unwillingness to pay full taxes on his wealth. Lowery while in prison suffered from excess acid and cramps from all the conditions. He told the police officers that he had always been scared of the things like prison, dark spaces, and randomly...sex."

"That's funny. That would explain him being nervous whenever Marion would be out late from work."

"Yes, he feared we would be seduced by the female prisoners there or that the male prisoners would rape him for his crimes. He went through serious depression after the Real Estate business closed down due to the undeclared money. As a matter of fact, whenever Marion went out to you for those 'extended lunch hours,' he smell 'it' off her clothing. It made him sick all the time. Lowery though he never admitted it, hated sexual intercourse. He found it embarrassing and undesirable hard to believe."

"That's messed up. But he make his own bed as did Cassidy and anyone else affiliated with the undeclared money that they put in the hands of Lowery to keep their own fortunes to avoid paying taxes like everyone else."

"Yes, you can say, God rest her soul, that Marion indirectly exposed both Bates' and Lowery's and Cassidy's corrupt businesses by the act of stealing the money, sacrificing herself. Bates had no idea what trap he set for himself with me and you pursuing him out of the loyalty of family. It was unspeakable act of madness, one in which he took the risk in messing with the Crane and Loomis families. Lowery and Cassidy thought the whole investigation with the money and Marion's death were over, but the citizens oddly enough were more insightful then. Cassidy nearly went after Norman thinking Marion asked Norman to cover for her once he was arrested, but the motel and mansion by the time Richmond, the asylum staff, and the police arrived at been declared a scene of the crime. Officials said that Norman was declared 'insane,' incapable of speaking for himself to Cassidy. By that time, Norman was already at the County Court House and the swamp was being depleted for Marion and Arbogast's bodies, cars, the money, and anyone else or anything (*shuddering*) there."

"Unbelievable, how much has happened in the past five years, Lila."

"Yes. Lowery Real Estate and Cassidy's Oil Lease Fields expressed deep sorrow for Marion and the resident, private detective Milton Arbogast."

"Is that all?"

"Almost. Cassidy's daughter is happily married and away from her father. She doesn't want to speak to him anymore so I've heard. Through with him, especially cheating and divorcing her mother, Judy, when she was six. She was tired of his overprotectiveness and babying of her. Almost substituting her as the wife of the house and she couldn't take it, hence her 'getting married away from him.' He gave her and pampered her with everything like a princess. She wanted independence and she got it with that Harris Street Property as the wedding gift with extra 40,000 dollars money from her father's bank account. Since the police investigation, Cassidy was only invited to the wedding and they haven't spoken to each other since."

"That's sad. I hope they talk to each other again. It's one thing between a mother and a son. But a father and daughter relationship has its complexities too. Opposite sex parents are very particular to their opposite sex children. Always want the best for them and love them so. Hopefully more trust and communication can bloom between them. But we can't be sure, Lila can we?"

"No we can't. I sometimes talk to Cassidy's daughter. We have lunches twice a month together. Her name is Ezra Cassidy White. Her husband, Lawrence, is an agriculturalist of a blueberry farm. They also have plenty of cows, sheep, and goats. She seems pretty happy with him. They've moved actually and now live in Kansas City, Missouri and are expecting a baby probably in July of this year."

"Nice. At least she's settled."

"She said never had an unhappy day in those eighteen years until the investigation. She always knew her father was a cheat and would be found out in the end, though she never told him. Once he was found out, she cut Cassidy off. She lived in the Harris Street Property for two years. Her husband was in accounting. She was a homemaker, but after a while the high life just bored her and she wanted to get as far away from Cassidy as possible. That's when Ezra and Lawrence moved and they became agriculturalists."

"Yeah, interesting career and life change."

"Caroline divorced her husband, Teddy Bloom. Caroline and her mother, Ronnie Shell, were always close. Kind of like a Mother's daughter relationship. She always stood by her in everything and agreed with her on many things. Caroline told Ronnie that she wasn't really interested in marriage and just wanted a single life thinking there was no absolute true love. Her mother thought differently and insisted that she get married or she'd cut off the relationship to speaking to each other for a year. Keeping the family tree alive was most important. Tranquilizers were occasionally used to calm nerves. But little did Ronnie know that Caroline began abusing the pills long before she and Caroline's doctor proscribed them to her. Caroline from the time she was born was prone to anxiety attacks, partially because of a heart-palpatation problem she had at birth. Her husband, Teddy, was furious when he found out she took tranquilizers on their wedding day. I guess maybe she was scared of marriage or maybe like Lowery...sex. Whenever Marion would talk about potential marriage at work, Caroline would usually shrug or ignore it and pop a pill in her mouth. Sad life choices. Her father, Robert, divorced Ronnie to run off with a hotel manager/beauty stylist in Texas when Caroline was thirteen. He had zero involvement in her upbringing from then on. The tranquilizer addiction got so bad and Caroline's mother intervening to see if Teddy called or did certain things, they broke it off. Caroline would most of the time value her mother's opinion over Teddy's even in marriage. She's been in rehabilitation in Phoenix's Substance Abuse Clinic. She goes there four times a week. Her mother and her are trying to reach a consensus in their relationship between under-involvement and over-involvement in Caroline's life and lessen the tranquilizer abuse. I go to the clinic to visit her there once a week and make sure she's okay."

"Wow...so many lives going through the motions, Lila. I wonder when it will end."

"I wonder that too, Sam. Life is so unpredictable and complex."

"I have something to tell you."

"What?"

"I've been thinking more and more about Bates."

"I'm telling YOU, move on and get over it. He's FINISHED. KABOOM. THE END. Your friendship or should I say HE...is DEAD."

Sam banged his hand against the wooden counter top, the paint bottles shaking unsteadily on the shelves.

"Don't call him DEAD."

Lila rolled her eyes and turned her back on Sam. He came up and turned her around saying, "I want to make this right. _I have to_. He probably wants to, too, he just hasn't said it yet. I'm going up there soon and you are coming with me."

"Why should I face him? He won't answer me, he probably doesn't want to hear about Marion anymore. He'll blame Norma."

"He is delusional and has been led astray. He doesn't know better."

"Are you blind? It doesn't take that many brain cells to dress up and grab a kitchen knife and murder someone in cold blood."

Sam paused for a moment, the high road seemed attractive, Norman could be forced to understand, but the middle road was a different matter. Bates could turn against him again and he'd be another hapless statistic of murder numbers in Los Angeles.

"Alright. I'll do things your way. But we will see him, mind you and we will get though it, how should I say it...alive in the end. One visit, that's it, we move on with our lives. It never happened."

Sam embraced Lila in a bear hug. At first she felt shaken, but eventually let her arms wrap around his broad shoulders.

"Thank you, Sam. You've been a true friend in all of this. I'm not so scarred anymore."

"You shouldn't be scared of anything now. He's scared more of me than he is of you."

**Same Day – Outside Loomis Hardware Store, Fairvale, CA 1pm**

As Sam and Lila continued talking about their plans of visiting Los Angeles Insane Asylum, a mysterious figure in a tanned trench coat and fruit hat was simultaneously peered in the window. Using a hearing cord to listen through, the person heard the whole conversation, smiling at the mischief in the air. It disappeared from the Loomis Hardware Store outside and drove back toward home.

"Oh, Emma Rebecca Spool, you strike again! Those bastards thought they could out wit and lock me away for life. Good thing I convinced them I was 'normal' again. Being a woman than a man is a plus in those facilities. Lest a man adopts a more feminine persona, no release, baby."

A fox-faced, short curly blonde haired and height wise, the forty nine year old possessed a wily and sinister character. She wore a navy suit with Burberry high-heels and make up that made her look like a Barbie doll. People used to joke that she suffered the Napoleon Bonaparte syndrome from being so demanding and controlling despite her height.

"Norman is at his most vulnerable now. All I gotta do is think of a plan. He will be mine forever, he will be, it's MEANT to BE. Not even John or Norma can stop me now. Gosh, the names sound like dirt in my mouth. But you what, everyone gets what they deserve in the end. My stuck up, paranoid, schizoid sister, poisoned and John well..." Emma chuckled and laughed more to herself while tuning in the news.

Emma parked her car on the blacktop of her home. The dwelling used to be the Chaperone's hideout in Fairvale. Spool had once been one of many mistresses to the Chaperone and perused him briefly after John left her for Norma in 1931 and marrying the older Spool sister that same year. The Chaperone said to Emma one of the many times he bedded her, that _she would learn to live and let live and enjoy the beauty of the mob life, even telling her that she was one of his more special mistresses. Marriage potentially in the cards._

_ "John Bates made his decision. Irrational, but from what was in his heart. You did nothing wrong," the Chaperone said as he enticed Emma to caress his chest more. _

"Chap is wrong. I love John, I always loved John. If I can't have John, then I'll have Norman.

Emma shuffled through some of her bedroom supplies and glanced over old newspaper clippings of John's death, her incarceration, Norma and Chet's death, and Norman's final incarceration and commitment to the asylum.

"December 1959, that was month and year I became a free bird and he a jail bird. But on the other hand, it gave me more time to get my 'sanity' supposedly back in order, the stupids. Oh, Norma, if only you could see me now. You'll release soon why our parents favored me than you. You were a 'mistake' and unplanned child, they'd call you. All the attention deserved to be given to me anyway now that I think of it. I thought I could control you and get everything I wanted, until you and your goody two-shoesness came and stole my John away from me. Even if I was a bit underage for him, it didn't matter, we were in love. Norman should have been my son! MINE! No one can stop me. You couldn't protect your Norman for very long, protecting him so claustrophobically it killed you in the end. To hell with you, sister dear! Dress up time was up for Norman that year and go thing too, so now he'd monitored and more vulnerable to my grasp, so thank you, Norma, thank you!"

Emma dined out at a Chinese buffet, while sitting in a curtained booth alone how to plan her revenge and attain what she most desired. She stocked up on chop sticks and fortune cookies to add to her Norman Bates shrine at home to complete a model made out of those materials many nights before. There were a couple of the Chaperone's weapons dug in the ground as Emma inspected more of her home property, his pocket knives and small hand guns. Emma dressed up the day after in drag to attain 3 B-B guns and 4 pistols from a local ammo shop.

She laid out all her weaponry on the rugged floor of the house and thought to herself, "All I need are some assistants."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapt. 7 – Paranoid

**July 2****nd**** 1964 - Los Angeles Insane Asylum - Psychotherapy Room for Compulsive Criminals – 8:30am **

"I think I might get used to this stuff," Norman said after Maddie and he took a morning walk around the wing.

Walks were always an activity he enjoyed doing more than anything else, especially since his days at the motel. Nights were always preferred times for him. Something just so heart pounding, mysterious and suspenseful about dark light walks from the swamp to the exit of the property's parking lot toward the old highway.

"Are you ready for another meditation session?" asked Maddie.

"I think so, um, Madeline, why are setting up a radio?"

Maddie put a tape inside the radio and then plugged it into the wall saying, "I'm gonna try something else. I'm using music. I learned in school that sometimes our other senses can be just as attuned to memories as our eyes. Like if I smell something like...a cheesecake, I remember my trip to New York City for Christmas break with my parents when I was nine. I remember walking the streets and the snow was falling down slightly against the light posts at night. It felt like an old movie."

"Oh, I see. But I'm not really sure if the tape has my taste in music or not."

"Don't worry. I've seen to that. I got classical music. Mozart and Beethoven."

"Beethoven, he's my favorite. I have records back home."

"Yes. Toby and I were actually shopping over the weekend and we found these two. He loves them, he says supposedly he's gonna use them for our wedding."

She suddenly remember this event, amid her copious notes, meetings, and of course...Norman Bates. Her eyes tensed up and her mouth became dry at the thought of the wedding and Toby.

"Isn't it in two days?" asked Norman.

Maddie felt suddenly conflicted about it. Where did her true loyalties and emotions lie at this point to her beloved? Marriage is a huge proposal, but she always treated it as just a major contract, nothing more...

"_Damn, a journey to make with that one person for a lifetime. Can it be done?" _she thought.

Maddie was always so witty, slick, and fast talking to any man. Even the sound and inflection of her voice would convince or talk him into anything she wanted.

The only thought she could muster out, she rambled on, "Ah man, yes it is, Norman. I think I may need to tell Toby that we need another month to plan things over. Need to make more money."

For the past six months, Norman noticed Maddie talk less and less about this other man. Though she did go out for lunches with him, those seemed to be dwindling to twice a week. She'd make the same excuse that she was busy. Norman reserved his feelings for her that potentially he wanted to spend more time with her. But love triangles always in end in destruction like when his mother and that man...thoughts of the colors red and black appeared, but Norman shaked them off immediately before it got worse.

"Why don't you go see him?" Norman asked.

"He's busy, too," Maddie said, "Only weekends do we seem to catch up. My parents visit me every Sunday. I've told them about you and the progress I've made. They are very mixed emotions about this whole ordeal."

"Sorry."

"It's not for you to worry about. How about after this we take a run through the maze?"

"Alright. Well, are you going to start playing it?"

"Yep!"

Before Maddie pushed the play button, Hayden burst in.

"Hello, friends! I'm not interrupting anything am I?" Hayden asked innocently.

"Oh, n-n-no, Madeline and I were just gearing up for another meditation session. Would you like to join us?" asked Norman pointing out a seat for Hayden.

"Maddie, Richmond sent me here and said that he wants to see Norman and you after the day is up, okay?"

"I'll make sure to touch base with him," Maddie said.

"Ready?"

"Yes," all three of them said.

_**March 11, 1945 – The Bates Mansion **_

_** Norman was upstairs in his room doing his homework. His mother had reluctantly helped him with mathematics. His bedroom was rather puny and decaying on parts of the walls. Two paintings of a ship at sea and the other was scenery in a countryside of England. A record player was off in one corner with all classic tunes. Mother had frowned upon jazz or big bang music much to the disappointment of Norman. Piles and piles of books laid on the desk and stuffed animals and toys were still spread out on the carpet and couch-bed he had. The window was wide enough so he could see visitors coming out the driveway or if Mother went out to buy groceries. **_

_** "Why must I always be by myself? Maybe I should make imaginary friends instead. Keep me company if I need it. Or...I'll go play the piano. She's out now and she won't mind if I played it just for me. I mean I can always use an audience." **_

_** The lanky awkward 11 year old made his way down the steep wooden stairs of the Victorian house. The furniture and curtains were unusually drawn in and darkened contrasting to the outside of the house which possessed white paint and yellow shutters. The bushes were trimmed through Norman's and Norma's combined effort in the spring and summer. The piano looked a bit dusty and Norman took a sweeper to the keys. **_

_** "Alright...what do I know? What do I know? Ah!" he thought. **_

_** Moonlight Sonata began to flow seamlessly from his fingers. Every beat and every inflection was mesmerizing in the song. Such melancholy at first but then descending into happier tunes. His long fingers were a perfect fit for the atypically big white and black keys. Pedals were always fun to use to create drama or suspense after a sudden pause in the song or create noise and liveliness in the house. Sometimes when Norman played pieces, he just let his mind drift off away from the Bates mansion and Mother, toward bushy forests and sandy beaches. At other times, if a sweet or romantic tune played his focus would be on something else... **_

_** Her name was Shellbey and she had wavy, brown hair, hazel eyes, and a yellow pocodotted dress with black flats on. Norman still had a crush on her for a solid year. They met each other in forth grade homeroom. She thought he looked adorable and thought they should go on a play date. Norman was nervous at first about the idea, but quickly warmed up to it. Maybe his mother could let this one slide, not like she did the four others reluctantly in elementary school. He remembered Shellbey's mother dropping Shellbey and Norman at his house. **_

_** "ABSOLUTELY NOT! YOU ARE NOT TO ON A PLAYDATE WITH HIM! HIS SCHEDULE IS FAR TOO PACKED," Norma said. **_

_** "But Mrs. Bates, it's just to a movie. I don't have cooties," Shellbey laughed, Norman smiling along with her. **_

_** "I don't trust you. I believe Norman needs someone better more than you. He's still a child, yet for playdates," Norma remarked staring at Norman as though partially objectifying him. **_

_** Norman found it all the more queer whenever his mother did that. **_

_** "But, Mother, please!" Norman exclaimed, "She's a nice girl. Please don't do this to me. You never give me a chance." **_

_** "Go, Shellbey, you've disrupted him emotionally. I can handle him. He's not ready for you."**_

_** Shellbey, heartbroken left the house and never talked to Norman again. It was like that after every one of those playdates with those girls. Eventually he'd be forced to break the friendship off.**_

_** "Norman," Norma said. **_

_** The crying seemed imminent, yet he tried so hard to hold it in. **_

_** "Oh, Norman, you don't know what it's like out there. People may be one way in one situation and then backstab you the next. I don't want anyone taking advantage of you like that," his mother said hugging him. **_

_** Her short brown hair, cut to the extreme after his father passed away, medium sized eyebrows, and narrow brown eyes matched her repressed, stringent aura. With a mint green dress and apron, Norma was very much in style with the restrained 1940s woman blended brilliantly with the Victorian style coats and housing. Every painting, plant, and style of furniture was all her choice and expression, though the environment seemed much brighter before his father died. When they moved into the mansion, he and Norma always found a splendid blend of lights and shadows around the house to give it more life than a stoic fatalist look. The mere walking into the house meant undo shame, fortitude, and rigidity. **_

_** "You understand, don't you Norman?" Norma asked pinching his cheek almost too hard for joking around. **_

_** Her fingernail accidentally scratched his cheek, a small dot of blood appeared. Norman looked at his fingertip. **_

_** "Sorry, honey cakes, let me get some warm water," Norma said and ran off to the kitchen. **_

_** The cut was getting worse as more blood spewed. It would be a good two weeks until it finally healed up. Instantly, something inside Norman made him want to do the same to her, only the gash in her cheek would be larger, but he quickly brushed it off. Why would ever think of such atrocities against her? She was his only friend and provider. **_

_** "Damn girls, if he were uglier looking I'd have a better chance...," she muttered under her breath...**__Norman finally remembered what she said then, it slightly broke him on the inside. He wished he could go back in time to give guidance to that scared, nervous boy. Be free, be free, run away now before things get out of control...'wait, what?' _

_**The memory transferred back the piano playing sequence again. When he was just getting to another light hearted portion, while imagining himself in shallow waters, his mother came storming through the house yelling at him to clean the bathrooms. The bathroom was the worst job to get, Mother would usually rack up the most hair, though protested Norman to pick it up. He remembered her being so respectable and responsible for behavior and habits before his father died. He said that he already did the bathrooms that morning, she took a broom and started beating him to get it done before she disowned him. Playtime was over mentally speaking. **_

_** "Mother, why can't you be-?" **_

_** "SHUT UP, BOY." **_

_** "Please, Mother, answer me."**_

_** The mother and son stared at each other for seconds on end. He could just about see water in her eyes strangely enough, though no tears came and immediately arched her eyebrows into an attack mode. **_

_** "I'm perfect! And don't you dare compare me to those other namby pamby idiots. They are scumbags and crack heads who don't know how to raise their children like I do. You aren't ready for dating yet." **_

_** For a moment, there was regret in her tone of voice, but she eventually stormed off to her room. He could just about hear whimpering... **_

_** "Oh my god, what am I doing? Oh fuck it!" **_

_** Norman proceeded to venture forth upstairs to help her, but backed away from the door. If there was even a slight tilt in the door...'It could mean danger,' he thought. **_

_**He shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to clean up more. **_

"That's fascinating, Norman," Maddie said.

"It really became a pattern with those playdates. Why didn't she let me go out?" Norman pondered, "She was obviously jealous of something I did, it had to do obviously with Shellbey and the others. Like I said, it was quiet a strain for her to raise me all by herself after my father died. I just didn't know what exactly she was getting at in not letting me spend time with those nice girls."

"There's a reason for that, I know it. Maybe it's self-hatred or maybe she thought those girls would be nicer and less cruel than your mother. That moment she was in her bedroom, it must have been some thought of regret that entered her mind," Maddie said.

"It's like each of these sessions is opening up more avenues and memory gaps in me. I don't know how to explain it."

"You've just become more comfortable with it."

"Yes. I nearly forgot that incident. I thought I saw some form of vulnerability there. I wanted to hug her or comfort her. But then I suddenly wanted to hurt her like she did me in that cut on my cheek. But I brushed it off because I felt dirty for thinking it."

"I think we can pretty much say you just learning a bit more about your feelings toward her. They were horrid things, but you didn't want KILL her. You just punch her back, like any kid does when confronted with bully. More sessions will come and we'll get to the bottom of this. This hasn't been easy for you, but I'm proud of you. Here, Hayden is still in her dream."

Norman tapped Hayden on the cheek...

_** "She needs surgery. Her head has been damaged, the frontal cortex and amygdala need work," a voice said. **_

_** Everything was murky and people were only shadows in her mind. **_

_** "Has he been notified of her?" a female voice uttered. **_

_** "Yes he has. I hope he understands," said a younger doctor. **_

__"Hayden! Hayden!" Norman yelled but she was lost in the memory still.

_** "She isn't responding." **_

_** "What is her father gonna think?" **_

_** "Don't know. It's dishonorable for this happen especially for him, he's worked so hard up the ranks." **_

_** She feels metal tips on her brain, it is exposed to the light. Almost an out of body experience, but it wasn't possible, she was supposed to be dead she heard them say...a nerve was touched (***explosions and fire sounded off around her***) **_

__"Hayden!" Norman yelled and Maddie shook her.

"Ah!" Hayden said waking up, she was covered in sweat, "What is it?"

"You were having a nightmare," Norman said, "You were tensing up."

"Don't touch me," she said and pushed him away.

"I apologize, Miss Cummings. I just thought it'd be easier since I shared my sequences, now you can."

"Hayden, what was the dream about?" asked Maddie.

Hayden's eyes darted from the windows to her pretzel style legs. She felt a certain impulse to toy with her long red hair, she usually did it whenever a problem arose or got nervous. Other times she'd pick her cuticles, which usually resulted in excessive bleeding. Usually ten minutes would pass when Hayden finally applied enough pressure to stop the blood and put a band aid on it. Some days there would be two band aids per finger, or two band aids on exactly one hand. It was a horrid, morbid habit she was trying to kick after ending her time at the reformed women criminals' college. Cracking knuckles was simple to get rid of, but picking fingers was trickier. She could never understand how or why she did it. Being a devoted Father's Daughter, he'd never approve and wanted her to be clean and neat like any young, eligible women. Men, he taught her once, looked at a woman's physical appearance first. Though one shouldn't judge solely by appearances of course, society still judges people immaculately dressed and behaviorally sound to be the best examples and hold them higher in stature.

"I...I...I wasn't..." she stammered.

Norman titled his head slightly, she even stuttered like him a bit which made him laugh on the inside. He had never once had as much female company in ever. Other women weren't to be trusted in their words or associated with. Yet why was his attraction to them still as pervasive? As much his mother tried to push him away from those feelings, temptation to stare and look always presented itself. Though he hadn't the courage to speak up or develop deep relationships, watching became his only hope. Either through 'forbidden' magazines he secretly acquired despite Mother constantly finding them and burning them or a peephole he carved in the wall of the parlor at the motel to observe at a safe distance. Voluptuous, pleasant looking, and dainty they seemed. Thoughts his mother would immediately get jealous of would flood him, as though he indirectly cheated on her. He wished he had more female friends so he could at least go on those play dates and develop at least lifelong friendships. What else was there to the mysterious creature, Woman? But Mother immediately, obviously in one of his hallucinations told him to forget the question. With Marion, Norman imagined that night he saw her undress, visions of him inside the room with her. What if he did go inside her room for supper? What events would have led? He had never met a girl like her, though he thought the same things as he did the others before the dirty deed was done. Though each woman was a source of such pleasure, they were ultimately 'obstacles' to preserving his past and Mother's memory. He was willing now to slowly put his trust in these two ambitious, headstrong females, though he doubted any lasting compassion would develop, making him cling more and more to Norma.

"Hayden, tell me. What was the vision?" asked Norman.

Hayden looked at him and remarked, "I was inside a surgery room. But...I don't remember ever having surgery. I-I-I I felt like I was a ghost."

"A near-death experience," Maddie quickly said, "Potentially."

"That phenomenon? Maddie, it's such a rare experience. Once you've been dead, you stay dead. If you have a stroke or heart attack chances are death is gonna knock at your door."

"Where was the procedure done on?" asked Norman.

"My frontal cortex and amygdala were damaged, severely, and there was something to do with my father," Hayden said.

"Your father? You never told me about him. Who is your father?"

"His name is George Cummings."

"What about your mother?"

Hayden went silent and looked down at her chest.

"I'm sorry."

"I don't where she is...she and my father divorced when I was three. My father got custody over me. Personality differences became too great between them, they couldn't compromise on anything. My mother supposedly told my father she'd visit me, even though she was given a job offer overseas for some rug company. But...she never came home."

Norman got up from his position and began to leave the room until Maddie stopped him.

"You can't leave without me, remember?" she said.

"Yes, I remember. I don't know how to answer for her. I can't speak my mind on her feelings," Norman answered frustratingly.

"You don't have to. This is something Hayden herself like you has to work through. Only if she has the will power to go back and unlock those doors in her memories will she be fine. Richmond has given me a history of her. You'll figure it out soon or she'll tell you."

"I can't get any honest from you, women. Maybe Mother was right..."

"That's not true, Norman. Hayden is very sensitive about her past and her parents just as you are. You have to mean well for her."

His eyes softened and then clenched the cold doorknob.

"I think I'm ready to move on to something else," he said.

"Okay, Norman. Hayden we're gonna leave you alright?" asked Maddie.

"No wait! You both...do you want to run around in that maze a bit to get some fresh air? I think Maddie wanted to with you," Hayden sobbed slightly.

"Yes! That's a perfect idea, girlfriend," Maddie said.

"I-I think I'll go back to my room. I need to th-th-think things over," Norman said looking down the hall.

Both girls walked Norman back to his room. All patients had to be back at their rooms at a certain time to line up for lunch at the cafeteria.

"Okay, Mr. Bates. It's lunchtime anyway. Maddie will see you at 1pm!" Hayden shouted grabbing Maddie by the arm.

"Alright, see you both when I'm ready! Have a nice time!" Norman shouted back.

Hayden and Maddie held each other arm to arm racing down the hallway toward door to the lawn area. They had become as close as sisters could be. Richmond was right on this one. He told Maddie that she never exactly had an older sibling example to look up to or share her problems with, and all around have fun and hang out with. Both girls had been loners before and shared similar criminal pasts, though Hayden slightly shied away from talking about hers than Maddie's. But Maddie believed Hayden to be beyond her prior circumstances personality wise and her actions and compassion. Between Toby and Hayden, lunchtimes were different in every way but filled with comradery and intense friendship.

"God! I can't handle meditation or this other exercise that becoming 'hip,' I think it's called yoga or Transcendental Meditation so I've heard from neighbors...I mean please!" Hayden said trying to stalk Maddie hilariously in the maze.

"Ah, darn kids," Maddie remarked loudly smirking to one far off corner.

"We are young people, Mad."

"I know. God damn it!" and ran towards her, both girls falling flat on the ground cackling comically.

As Norman ate his lunch, as usual, alone, his thoughts returned once again to Marion Crane.

_"There must be something I can say or do to start this all over, fresh and clean. Oh, who am I kidding? No, wake up, stupid, wake up. Mother...she made me, it was always her, she did this to me. She took Marion away. She took all of them away...Norma Bates." _

How could he blame another person for an action he himself knew he did, but under so much stress and guilt, forgot about it so he couldn't fess up to unspeakable crimes? Perhaps he was always conscious and denied it. What poor innocent, hardworking, and boy-next-doorish Norman Bates, a murderer? He would be just as guilty as that thuggish murderous clique of five and of course just as crazed as Maddie with her gang life and joints. A feminine and almost weak characteristic to repress and deny one's sins to transfer guilt to someone else. He didn't want to believe his prized stuffed obsession was dead. Mother sometimes said that growing up means you can't run away from your problems. But yet, she created most of them for him. She raised him to be a killer..._no...yes...no...I don't know. _

Norman was never sure what his mother expected him to be. A dutiful son, no doubt. A focused and devoted lover, maybe. _Perversely so_ he thought.

Did she raise him to accept incest as normal? No doubt she probably meant well in protecting him to be a good parent against bad people, but in other areas she simply couldn't keep up with him. He could name them at the top of his head like picking up those magazines, for he too was a red-blooded male. What would she know of male desire than to suppress it and castrate it before it got out of control, going out on those four playdates with those girls in elementary school. After a while she would never tell him why he couldn't see them, just because she said that they couldn't be trusted and could bully him.

He didn't understand, but followed along with her train of thought nonetheless. The girls would be broken hearted and would tell their friends about Norma and how mean she was to Norman. Norman of course would interject saying that she loves him and just wants the best for him. The kids would shrug their shoulders and turn away from him. Next, going out to see old Hollywood movies, which inevitably made her look hypocritical since there were kissing scenes in some good ones. She would smile and laugh while covering Norman's eyes. On particular movie, _Fantasia_ (1940) from Walt Disney had a Beethoven themed scene which had centaur women. The animated, sensual appearances engaged the eight year old tremendously. The way they talked amongst each other and seduced one by one of the male centaurs. The cherubs encouraging their fruitful get together and possible marriage. Norman wished himself someday to be big and strong and have his own private escape. What was behind those pretty faces? He was but merely a child and too innocent to know of what his mother was truly getting as the years went on and her thoughts shifted radically toward paranoia.

_** "Look, Mommy! There's one purple, one yellow, and one blue. They look so sweet with flowers in their hair. I wanna ride one!" he whispered innocently. **_

_** "You can always use me as a substitute for them at play time, dear," she remarked somewhat jealously. **_

_** "Awwwwww." **_

And lastly, there was him.

_Who was he? _

He was almost a spitting image of Norman. He was about two inches taller than him, with broad shoulders, crew cut dark brown hair, hands like bear paws, sandy skin, and a square wider than Norman's. A mirror image or perhaps his long lost doppelganger. He was unfortunately and unknowingly to Norman, tragically connected to Marion Crane.

Her boyfriend.

_Sam Loomis. _

His only friend. Best friend. True friend. His spar partner.

Mother, strangely, though she never approved of Loomis, never stopped Norman from being friends with him. She was so big on him not having many friends, yet why associate with just Sam? Maybe because he was a man. Maybe he looked older than his age. Maybe because he was taller than Mother. Maybe he just commanded a certain respect, will power, and charisma that she potentially almost feared. Now that he looked back on it, Loomis's clean cut appearance, masculinity, and suaveness almost mirrored John Bates. Every other night, Norman would sneak out of the mansion and sleep over Sam's house. There they'd share stories and tell secrets about everything and everybody. No one else knew of Norman's life better than the Loomis family.

From his father's death to his slightly incestuous relationship with his mother, Sam knew the whole story. No one else did, no one else would be allowed to. In a way, Loomis and Bates preferred it that way in the end. No one in Fairvale would understand. If such a story about the relationship came out, if Norman said anything to Shreriff Chambers, Norma would disown him. She depended on him, almost like a husband than son. He couldn't betray her no matter how perverse the situation became. Norman knew it was an abnormal, unnatural relationship, she probably knew it too, but they couldn't bare the potential abandonment. They were meant to be together forever. Sam could never comprehend it, but was never the less sucked into the drama of the situation. Though kids at school would tease Norman of being an absolute momma's boy, Sam would back him up saying that he was too, 'got a problem, friend?' Eventually, vocal taunts in bullying would cease, only to be replace with just people giving Norman the cold shoulder, all of them, except for Sam. In high school, the kids would ask him if Norman had gotten 'laid' yet? Whenever he said 'no,' they'd give him strange magazines. Model and borderline showgirl magazines. He'd say that after a while he couldn't read them, lying that they hurt his eyes.

_**'What an F-A-G, fag,' one broad shouldered, blonde haired asshole said and slunk away with his four other cronies. **_

_** Norman eventually one day in ninth grade asked Sam a question about the magazines. **_

_** "Ah, Norman, of course I have them. I don't stalk these girls I see or any random girl. That's not being a real man. I preferred casual dates and a kiss or two at the end. You can come over tonight and look at them with me." **_

_** "Really?" **_

_** "Yeah!" **_

_** "Great! I can never take a lot from those bums. I've gradually stopped collecting them because Mother always inquires about them from me, though I hide them." **_

_**"Because they'll probably treat their women someday like crap." **_

_** "We know better though. We come from structured households." **_

_** "We?"**_

_** "Right...Mother. Please Sam let's not talk about her. She burnt the magazines." **_

_** "Sure. Once she's asleep, leave a ladder outside so you can climb down."**_

_** "Yes! I will. You truly are a genius, Sam Loomis." **_

_** "And you have a wily and witty imagination, Norman Bates." **_

As close as friendship can get...a bromance, people labeled them jokingly and insultingly. Now that he looked back on it, Sam was partially responsible for awakening and encouraging his own developing manhood amid Norma's paranoia. For who else was Norman to look to for a male influence in his life? Was she partially afraid of Norman's own sense of control over himself and his own destiny to wander off and leave her? Did she fear male sexuality or the extremes of female sexuality to lure her son away from her grasp? Was getting a girlfriend all or was there something deeper to her increasing obsession to control his life? What was her deal? Nonetheless, Norman became progressively fascinated with his magnetic, good-looking, confident peer.

_**"Norman!" Sam called out tapping on his window. **_

_** It was exactly 10pm and hours for bedtime in the Bates home were 9pm on the dot, no questions. All lights shut off and all windows locked. **_

_** Norman rose up from bed and opened the window, "Hey! I'm happy that you came. Mother is asleep now. I double checked. She has a habit of talking in her sleep, all hear is gibberish." **_

_** "Oh my God, that's too funny, you can tell me everything she says when we get to my house," Sam said. **_

_** "Here, let me get a change of clothes." **_

_** The two boys sulked out into the night. Walking along what was the old highway, was mini experience in of itself, a few times they'd hitchhike small rides back to main town Fairvale. Sam Loomis Sr. and Suzanne greeted Norman as they always did. Sam's father loved to playfully ruffle Norman's hair as though he were also his son. Asking him questions and thinking of times to go fishing again with Sam. **_

_** "Now, you boys have to be in bed before 1:30am at the latest again, you understand? Just because it's the weekend, doesn't mean you disrupt your day schedules," said Suzanne impatiently. **_

_** "Promise, Mother," Sam answered and kissed her cheek. **_

_** The boys ran upstairs toward Sam's bedroom and set up shop for the magazines, while Norman turned on the record player with Sam's big band jazz music. Sam got two girl's fashion magazines, one modeling, and one slightly erotic. Norman's gaze never left the pictures. The women's eyes calling his name, commanding his attention in those positions. Wavy and curly hair. Pin up or modeled. Blonde, brunette, ginger, brindles even. Fair, pale, and olive skinned beauties with balanced light and shadows on them. The whole session seemed like one huge come on. What he wouldn't give to see those women, any of his pick, unattainable or not they'd be his. **_

_** "Is it warm in here, Sam?" Norman asked tugging at his collar to his dark green sweater. **_

_** "No it isn't. My room is kind of medium temperature. My father is very strict about night temperatures, got to save costs. Are you enjoying the magazines?"**_

_** Gulping loudly and laughing afterward Norman said, "Yes. How did you know?" **_

_** "I knew from the moment you opened up the first magazine you began to shake. I didn't know if you were either starstruck or scared." **_

_** "I just didn't know how to react yet. Mother...oh, Mother, she wouldn't approve of me doing this Sam, I just can't do this." **_

_** "Are you serious? What is her pathology against you dating? I mean playdates were innocent enough when you were younger, but you're getting older now. Are girls like the Devil? I mean she's a girl too, so she's a hypocrite and a frickin' idiot." **_

_** "She thinks she's the only one for me. I should take care of her."**_

_** "Aaaaaand, do you believe that crock of bullshit now?"**_

_** "No, now that I know about it. I told you before when she told me that truth two years ago when I was thirteen. She told me that it was best to tell me then, so she wouldn't 'lose' me. But just because I don't believe every word she says doesn't mean I don't want to be loyal to her. Whatever flies in her house, her rules, I don't want to betray her." **_

_** "She's turned into the town control freak in my mind. Major control freak. Doesn't she want to propagate the Bates family tree more, like you get married? What is she afraid you'll become a drug addict, join a gang, or God forbid join the frickin' army and die out in the fields?" **_

_** "She's never talked about it with me. As far as I'm concerned there is no plan. I can't run off, who'd look after her?" **_

_** "She's a grown woman. She's capable of taking care of herself. If she can't do it, she's a mental retard or potentially a ditz slash dumbass."**_

_** Norman frowned at Sam's comment and closed the magazine, the ending of it had a voluptuous blonde haired woman with a cheetah cub. **_

_** "You're hurting me, Sam." **_

_** "Sorry. I just want you to think practically about what you want to do with your life." **_

_** "I know that. I'll think of something. I want to you to guide me in it as best you can." **_

_** "I'm just your friend, Norman. Whatever you do with your life is your choice." **_

_Choice_...that word, constantly haunting him. So much passion, so much guilt, so much responsibility attached to it. Choice was similar to a human being's free will, to do as one pleases, to go any place, make any decision, think anything. From defiance, to agreeing, to compromise, to fighting. Mother never discussed such concepts like choice in the household. Everything he did or said was never his choice. Her opinion and views were dominant, cowing him into submission. What choice did he have at home? How could he learn to make choices when every single decision and action was dictated by someone else?

_**"Alight, Sam. Let's close it up for the night. I'm tired, I'll walk back by myself before Mother wakes up," Norman said. **_

_**"There ya go mah man, Bates! Goodnight!" Sam boasted and hopped under the covers. **_

_** Norman slept on the long couch on the other side of Sam's bedroom, "Sleep tight!" **_

_** "Dream of babes in blue sparkles, tonight!" **_

_** As Norman drifted off into a deep sleep, his dreams were full of those models he viewed in the magazines. One such model grabbed his attention, a short haired, curly brunette with olive skin. **_

_** "Come on, Norman, join me." **_

_** She seemed much older than him, but it didn't matter, he was enraptured with this beauty. He came quietly to the bed and sat down, his back turned against her. She began to slowly remove his shirt, running her hands through his hair. The sensation was unbelievable, unexplainable. It made him turn around and press a hard kiss to her lips. As she began to unbutton his pants, the brunette's kisses became longer and burningly gratifying. He was lost in the moment without a care in the world. The feeling was rejuvenating and overwhelming his system, he could just about feel consciously his forehead and pelvis become increasingly hot on Sam's couch as Norman continued to dream. **_

"_**I'll never EVER let you go," Norman muttered under his breath. **_

___**END OF THE DREAM **_

_** "Norman! NOMRAN! NORMAN!" a voice shouted in the distance, reality was coming back to him just as a climax was about to amount within him. **_

_** Sam peered out through his bedroom window and saw Norma standing outside the Loomis house. **_

_** "She's back," Sam said to Norman as he was waking up.**_

_** "Man..." Norman thought, disgruntled his mother's voice intruded upon his moment with this woman in the dream. **_

_** Sam Sr. and Suzanne let Norma into the house. Sam Sr. tried to stop her from careening up the stairs, as Norman could hear her through Sam's bedroom door. Bursting it open, hitting Norman square on the forehead. Her face was all sweaty and in a panic. **_

_** "WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU? I CALLED THE POLICE, I CALLED THE SHERIFF! NOTHING FROM YOU. I NEARLY LOST MY MIND. WHY DID YOU RUN AWAY? YOU COULD HAVE DIED." **_

_** "Mother, I didn't run away. I just had a sleep over with Sam. I've done this dozens of times. You were asleep. I didn't want to wake you." **_

_** "If you were going over his house, then you should have told me."**_

_** Norma glanced down at the floor and rabidly scrapped up the magazines. **_

_** "Is this what you were looking at? WITCHES, PIGS, AND SCUM BAGS ALL NIGHT?" **_

_** "They are women, Mother. They were pretty. I-I-I-I just wanted to see them." **_

_** He could Sam in the corner of his eye clenching a 'I-am-proud of you, man' fist. **_

_** "Um, lady those are my magazines, get your mitts off them before I tell Mother and Father," Sam interjected. **_

"_**I thought I told you to stop reading them. I've trashed every single of them you've been scrapping for the past year and a half. I don't want to be entitled to no accounts, those things cost money anyway," Norma argued. **_

_** "I can look at them with Sam," Norman fought back saying. **_

_** "NO, you can't. NOT EVER. EVER."**_

_** "BUT I WANT-" **_

_** "NO! DON'T DEFY ME!" **_

_** "IT'S MY CHOICE!" **_

_** Norma went silent and uttered, "Oh...I see. Give me your hand. We're going home. If you don't, I'll commit you to a sanatorium." **_

_** "What? No, that's crazy. I haven't done anything wrong. Mother, please!" **_

_** "After hearing your banter about how you miss Father and looking at me longingly like I'm some kind of lover. COME ON! I'll show you what happens when your eyes wander." **_

_** Like a parent would do to a misbehaving child, Norma grabbed Norman by the arm quickly gathering his belongings. As they walked out, Norman could faintly see Norma seductively try to eye Sam Sr. from the chest down, smiling at him. **_

_** "Like I said, if you are available to come for coffee. I'm always home," Norma said suggestively. **_

_**Norman had often heard Norma talk in her sleep saying his name, wanting to do the most ridiculous and sensual things to him. It made Norman upset and slightly jealous, but Sam Sr. and Suzanne were so dear and kind to him. He trusted their marriage to be a secure and happy one. He immediately brushed this incident off. Why his mother have her eye on other men than Norman? She would never do that. How could this be? Was it true? Was she two faced to her own word? The very thought of it frightened him, for if it happened he too would be abandoned. Norma stood at the door way for a minute waiting for Sam Sr. to react. **_

_**Sam Sr. turned away in disgust and Suzanne rose up angrily toward Norma. And for once in his young life, Norman sensed dread in his mother against this earthy looking mid-forties matriarch. Her dark thick curly hair, solid face, olive skin, and fattened muscular arms commanded the same intimidated charisma passed on to her son. He could feel Norma's hands shake, in addition to her eyes widening in guilt and utter embarrassment. **_

_** "Get out of my house, you bitch," Suzanne said, "Don't worry, there are no secrets in the Loomis house unlike yours, Norma Bates. You should try being more honest and caring with your son before it's too late. I've told Sam how I feel about the magazines. Even I don't approve of them, as long as he doesn't view women as such people. As parents we can only guide our children so far in life, but sometimes they'll have to make their own decisions that will differ from their parents. Children can sometimes come out different than you thought possible or surprise you when you least suspect it, no matter what kind of parent you are. Good or bad or something in between. You can only try so hard with your children to make them trust you and love you. Think about that, Bates. I won't have your banter and filth step inside this house and certainly not breach on my husband's emotional property. You boast yourself as being an honest woman in church and a good mother. If that's the case, may the Almighty Lord have mercy on your family's souls. If you say anything or touch my husband, I'll call the-"**_

_** "Yes, maim," Norma said almost ashamed like a five year old, the words barely pasted her mouth.**_

_**Norman saw Suzanne's fists clench slightly, turning purple. Norma looked behind her almost expecting Norman to back her up. Her physical height that one instance corresponded perfectly with her frightened look. Suzanne was ready to shred her or break her neck it seemed. Sam had told Norman that his mother and her family braved the sandstorms and deserts of Nevada and the whole of California State to come here from Mexico, plus provide numerous papers for citizenship. Only hardwork, learning English, and strong Catholic faith guided her throughout in making it in America. She worked many manual labor jobs until she met Sam Sr. through a June fiat at church. His father always prided her as being almost as tough and in control as he was. **_

_** As Norma drove away, Norman looked out the window. This wouldn't be the last of their escapades. Sam was his escape from the wretched mansion which held nothing but isolation, loneliness, and imprisonment. There were no redeeming qualities in his mother. Norma's face was flushed and whitened like death warmed over. **_

_** "If you go over that boy's house again tell me," Norma said. **_

_** "Yes, Mother," he said obediently. **_

_** The two of them stayed silent throughout the ride home. **_

_** "This won't happen again. I love you, Mother," he said trying to cheer her up. **_

_** "Good," she said smiling and continued to drive by, the rain slowly pouring miserably outside. **_

"All patients, please line up in your respective lines to the wings!" shouted an attendant.

Norman rose up from his seat, slowly putting his tray back on the counter. He loosened his white short-sleeve shirt a bit and retied his tennis shoes. As he was led back to the room, he pondered over more of what Maddie told him about opening himself up. The whole room seemed empty without her presence, only she could truly guide him now and surpass his demons. He tried to think of happy thoughts or Maddie even to suppress his loneliness.

_"You truly think you can trust her, Norman?"_ a familiar feeble voice said.

"Yes, I do...I-I-I mean I think I do...Mother," he said.

_"She's only out for herself. The slut doesn't deserve to be here. Coaching you and raising you to think different. I only I can do that." _

"She's trying to help me."

_"She's trying to destroy you. Destroy me. She must die. Before it's too late...kill her." _

"No, Mother."

_"Do it! I need you to do for me! Don't you remember?" _

"You know you could try being open to her too if you wanted!"

_"I don't open up to any dishonest woman." _

"But you, you went off with that man..."

_"SHUT UP! We weren't talking about me. We're talking about you. What do you have to say to that, boy?" _

Norman was silent for a moment and looked out the window to see Maddie and Hayden walking back to the doors to his ward.

_ "You made a silly promise to her, didn't you? Petty statement, why can't you do anything right?" _

"Yes."

_"Ha! Like you can ever keep promises. Promises are meant to broken. What's the use of them is dark, dank world? Give into me and forget her. Just get rid of her...now, and you'll be spared of pain. Like you did the last time that wretched Loomis and Crane committed you, become me...just like you protected me before... right here, right now, if you are the dutiful son I think you are." _

Norman ran his hands quickly through his hair and sat on the bed crying.

"Go away, please. Stop...I made her a promise."

His mother's words echoed endlessly through his head, until there were multitudes of her past conversations with him spinning around. There was no escape.

_"Face it, you are me, you will be me,"_ she said hypnotizing, _"There really was no distinct identity with me and you, Norman. People are truly fake on the inside. And you are one of them. You can never be independent from me."_

"ENOUGH!"

_"MONSTER! MONSTER! MONSTER!" _

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" he punched a hole in the bed as Maddie stepped in.

"She came back, Maddie. I-I-I can't explain it," Norman said frantically.

Maddie rushed over and hugged Norman tightly. Her arms were so warm and just the right length to embody him that already he felt relieved, his mother's voice becoming fainter and fainter.

"When did you start to think about her?" Maddie asked almost rocking him back and forth like a parent singing a lullaby to a sleepy child.

"I was thinking more of my past...a friend, I used to have and I saw you coming in from the window and things just got worse. She told me to do the most horrible things," Norman said pulling away and stood up.

"What things?"

"Like break my promise."

"Did you agree to do it? Are you going to kill me?"

"No, never."

Maddie paused wide eyed and folded her arms. Norman glanced away in shame. But he had no choice, she had to be protected.

"I m-mean, I care too much for you. We made a promise and I intend to keep it, no matter how unhinged my mind seemed to be."

"That is the sanest thing you've ever said to me. You know that, Norman?"

Norman partially smirked and hugged Maddie again. His forehead hair rubbing against the back of her right shoulder. Maddie looked behind her and saw the gaping hole in the bed and called up an attendant to put in an extra bed.

"I find the more I'm alone, the more she comes back. Or the chances of her coming back are higher," Norman said.

"Well then, you'll just need to tell Richmond that when you see him. Why don't we go out to a different room," Maddie replied.

"That's a good idea. Hey! Can we go to the activities room? Do they have a piano?"

"Yes, they do, why?"

"I just...I gotta play something, you'll love it. My mother taught me to play when I was three."

Maddie got up and gathered her things quickly, but Norman was faster, "Come on!"

All of the staff members found it rather peculiar that a patient was dragging a nurse to a room than vice versa. A new jazz piano had been installed earlier that year. Norman quickly sat down and motioned for Maddie to come closer. She obliged graciously.

"So, what are you going to play?" she asked.

"Eroica, by Beethoven. Wonderful symphony, you'll love it," Norman said.

He tried to piece together the notes from the song which he must have listened to a dozen times while alone at the mansion/motel. Norman took a few moments to try to remember exactly what tempo and feel the piece needed. It had been too long since he last touched the piano or record player. Classical music was his favorite, or at least the only music allowed in the house. But nonetheless, was captivating and used for escapist circumstances of punishment or loneliness. He decided to play the first three movements of the sonata, the best he could from memory since the piece was exceptionally long. The very beginning of the sonata began abruptly which startled both Norman himself and Maddie as his fingers pounded the G and D major keys of the piano, quickening the pace gracefully to lighter atmospheres.

Feelings of flying and overzealous joy flooded his mind, inexplicable freedom and release from his mentally trapped circumstances. In music, Norman could truly be himself, without his mother intruding. He imagined himself flying like a great eagle or forest owl spreading its wings toward bigger and better dreams than the clinging chains of his perversely wayward past sins. There in those euphoric high notes and low depressive notes of the Funeral March piece which encompassed the 2nd movement of the sonata described himself in a nutshell, a poor soul with uncontrollable, animalistic impulses, yet at the same time managed a façade of normalcy and charm, amid his crumbling sanity. Haunting, demonic, and subtle the whole piece seemed.

Proceeding to the third movement was much more jovial than the past one making him feel care-free and nostalgic to those select moments Mother would treat him right, if only the things that could have been between them than an unnatural, incestuous desire and controlled life. Anything for a whole family than a broken one. Broken, was he truly broken? What if all of this would turn to utter failure? He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. To be locked away, his past and Mother's memory consuming him or to fight on and resist her temptations for him to cause destruction on those he cared most.

After pondering these thoughts, Norman finally slammed the last note of the 3rd movement. His forehead feeling warm and his fingers utterly spent and flexible.

"My goodness, Norman," Maddie said amazed, "I didn't know you had such talent. How long has it been since you played piano? What stirred you to continue this?"

"Well, classical music was all that was allowed in my house. She gave me money to buy records at the store and I've kept them preciously ever since. If it's one activity she'd allowed me to do the most either when she was out of the house or not doing chores or being mean, it was playing the piano. Sometimes I'd play before I started my homework or I put on the record player to help me focus. If I didn't have those things in the house, I don't what I would have done. Once I...ah—"

"Once she died, Norman."

"Yeah. Once...that...happened, I gradually stopped playing the piano. Putting the record player would become a hassle because Mother got migraines. Everything just became so bland, empty. She became so demanding on me. The piano started to collect dust, so I dusted it one day. I wanted to play so much, but when I placed my fingers on a few keys she scolded me. But now that I play, I think less and less of her."

"Maybe it's because you're away from home, away from those memories."

"Perhaps. I feel so, so reenergized. I feel like my head is expanding. I'm thinking of things I've never thought of before or possible in a long time. I'm uncomfortable with it, Maddie. I don't think if this is temporary or not."

"I think this definitely is giving meaning to something in you, Norman. I think it symbolizes that you still have more to contribute. You can do it. You can reach sanity."

"Well...yes, yes, you're right. I have to trust you anyway. I feel like a headache is coming on. I need to lie down more."

"Okay, I'll take you back to your room. We have about a half hour until our meeting with Richmond to discuss your progress. Which is aaaaaaatttt...(*checks watch*) 3pm."

"Sure, let's go!"

Norman and Maddie made it back his room and proceeded to wait.

"Oh and Norman one other thing, Richmond has asked me to monitor you in your sleep again this time longer, as watch you at night."

"But I thought nurse-patient procedures for those things were only a few hours in the day and not at night. He told me that earlier this year."

"That's what I thought. He wants to see a more comprehensive study, should he decide to move you to another unit or if we prescribe a special medication for night times."

"You'll get tired though. Where will you sleep?"

"Don't worry I got my office or the bench in here. No biggie."

"I'm not sure, Maddie. Mother..."

"Just don't think of your mother. Think of something joyful, something YOU. Or the piano or Beethoven. Not anyone else. It's your head. Or thinking of her will just make the illnesses worse and worse."

"I'll try," Norman said sighing, gradually brainstorming ideas of potential topics to slip into his head for back up.

"Most of all, you got me for the night. You've seen how I've defended myself. But remember we've made a promise. Promises are special contracts that confidants make to each to ensure trust."

Norman peered up at her skeptically, "...Right. That's right. Let's see what happen those nights."

"The most I've seen you active in your 'nap' times is just tossing and turning. Sometimes you mumble in your sleep. Sometimes you take on different personas in a dream, but for the most part you've told me you are yourself. What's the worry?"

"Full nights are longer and I have trouble falling asleep. Nighttime has never been my forte. The dark just always scared me and still does. So much uncertainty and confusion in it, I have think hard on something to get me through, mostly it's Mother. Though she appears gentle and kind, she just transforms into something ugly."

"Then we'll just have to think of a way to move past this obstacle course."

Norman nodded and took off his shoes and proceeded to lie down on his bed. Maddie took the bench side to observe him more. Though nurses always had options for break times before patient meetings or to wait outside while patients were napping, Maddie opted for the opposite always but this was part of a small procedure for Richmond, so thought she had more freedom in this respect to manipulate the rules.

After a while since the napping procedures began, Norman became more and more accustomed to Maddie's presence. Something about her, almost reassuring. Amid her toughness and bold demeanor, Norman sensed a soft side, an almost nurturing temper. It reminded him of those times when he was little that after painting sessions outside, Norma would come to greet him at the door and always have a prepped soft mattress in his room ready for rest until dinner was put on the table. John would be coming home at his usual time.

Maddie had become almost like a best friend for him or something he was beginning to sense more serious... something he always wanted to develop from the first day he met her. From her peach skin, medium length wavy hair with cow licked ends like the other nurses had, Maddie's bangs parted seamlessly the way he liked them to be. He wanted to run his hands through her hair, ever since that night in Cabin 9. Her preppy outfits she wore underneath her lab coat, distinguished her from the others, though she never flaunted it. Her smile, comical smirk, and her eyebrows always left him in awe wanted to someday if he ever got out base a painting on her.

Those eyes, like an invisible electric current engaging him when everything else seemed hollow and without meaning. What would it be like to hold her and run his hand on her back? The untapped potential lying within him that Mother wanted to restrain, his desire to possess this female completely, to submit to him. Underneath that tortured addicted soul, was a desperate young woman who just wanted to be loved, who needed security and stability like him. Marriage, home and family at the center of it all. How could he give that to her when every moment those ten years was spent on disillusion, chaos, and perverse morals of domesticity. Necrophilia was a phase in his life that Norman even out of treatment would never totally expunge from himself. Sins may be freed from one, but the experience of it remains intact, unable to be detached from the body, mind, and soul.

"_Perhaps she'll find her love in that other man,"_ he thought.

"I'm closing my eyes, Maddie," Norman said.

"Okay, begin," she said.

As he laid there, Maddie quietly rose up and drew the shades of the window. Parallel shadowed lines from the shades gave the room a discomforting, claustrophobic feel, like spikes cutting the room in pieces. Yet amid this horrific sight, the rays of sunlight poured in subtly to give the room a heavenly, soft glow with complemental shadows in the corners. Maddie wrote a letter thanking the attendant for fixing both the bed and mirror in Norman's room. She watched him lay, not a sound or fumble came from him. With his white T-shirt fitting perfectly on his broad shoulders, slightly muscular toned arms and toned stomach, and slender frame uncannily similar to Toby's, Maddie had no problem keeping herself occupied.

Though she denied it, she could stare her patient all day and never tired. There was always this lingering, mesmerizing quality about him that she could never put her finger on. As much as she thought Toby could pull this off, her thoughts consistently returned to her patient. Almost like there was a voice emanating from him shouting, 'Look at me. Look me,' every expression, ever bodily movement seemed perfect...he was the most beautiful man she ever saw in her entire life. But who was she kidding, she had Toby and Toby had her. She was far too deep to get wrapped up in her increasingly conflicting emotions for a man who tried to kill her, but now barely reaching requirements for full sanity and recovery. It wasn't meant to be in her wildest imaginations she kidded herself as she continued to watch Norman with upmost lovingness.

Sleep was beginning to wear off on Norman when he finally awakened, though his eyes remained shut. Maddie walked over to him, it was 2:55pm and they had to leave soon. He seemed so peaceful and well rested, but Maddie knelt down and tapped his shoulder.

"We have to go. By the way, nothing happened. You seemed relaxed. No talking in your sleep either, that's a first."

Getting up slowly and rubbing his eyes, "Yes and no bad dreams either. Actually, I didn't dream of anything. Weird. Anyway, I'm ready to see him."

She smiled and took out her hand to him.

"You used to get tense and shaky whenever I did that," Norman said returning a grin.

"Not anymore."

"I appreciate it, Madeline. I really do."

"I'm happy about that I, hard to believe, Norman. Follow me."

"_Promise..._," he thought as they made their way down the hall toward Richmond's office.

**Same day – Dr. Richmond's office – 3pm **

"Maddie, I'd like to speak to Norman first, then you," Dr. Richmond said almost like a parent, "Remember we taught you patient first."

"Yes, Daddy," Maddie remarked.

"Don't call me that," he said chuckling.

"Well, you kind of are, since Mom and Dad are like five hours away from me. Who deserves the title? You're old enough to be my parents anyway."

"Outside the asylum you may call me whatever the hell you like. But here it's different."

"Don't worry, R-mond, you get plenty of women from using 'Daddy.' Marriage could be potentially for you. Hayden is pretty desirable. 'Daddy' was one of Chaperone's nicknames."

"MADDIE," Richmond said shakily turning to Norman.

Norman made a slight smirk at Maddie's curt answer and let go of her hand. Maddie winked at Richmond and shut the door cautiously.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Norman asked.

"Yes, I did. I want to talk about your progress so far," Richmond said closing the door quietly.

Dr. Richmond's office consisted of several awards for curing patients with especially high risk criminal behaviors. The more severe the case the higher the award value. Richmond was a man of balance and perspective when it came to individual patients. Criminals in his mind could be just as easily rehabilitated as other psychiatric patients at other hospitals. Psychiatry was across all backgrounds. He intended to work with Norman and have the upmost patience with his high profile patient.

"So...how do you like Maddie? I really thought she was going to have more trouble with you or her demeanor would be too much for you," he said.

"Madeline? She's been wonderful with me. I must admit it was a bit rough at the beginning...with-"

"Your mother?"

"Yeah."

"What did Maddie do about it?"

Norman shrugged his shoulders and looked out toward the windows to see two blue jays flying with each other out across the city area.

"We...made a promise."

"A promise? Norman Bates keeping a promise to someone. This is news to me."

"I need it. I really do. It's the only way I can control these delusions before they overtake me, sir."

"What exactly did she propose to you?"

"If you really want to know, I'll tell it to you exactly. I'd never EVER hurt her."

"This is definitely a first for you. For Norman Bates the mother-obsessed mass murderer, cross-dresser, necrophiliac, and grave robber."

Norman felt his body tense up at the very insult of this banter. He believed everything he did was right in order to not have Mother taken away forever. His resolve left incomplete if she were buried. But even the thought of these very events made Norman shutter that this was his life spent for a decade. His own psychiatrist to doubt him now after everything and all the words spent on him. Perhaps he was just using Norman as a bargaining chip for an award to be promoted as top psychiatrist in the state, his own wellbeing being minuscule to Richmond's wealth and prestige, everything Norman wasn't.

"I'm sorry Norman but I really just don't buy it. I'm just about at my wits end. How can you keep a promise? Can you prove me wrong?" Richmond asked.

"She's helping me through. It hasn't been simple these past six months. Sometimes at night I'll get these taunts from Mother to inflict the most horrible things on Maddie and Hayden," Norman delineated more.

"And do you think your mother will convince you soon?"

"I hope not. I don't want to anymore. It's like if I say no, my hands are start to shake and my legs feel frozen. I feel like I'll explode or break something if I don't do it."

"Your body, your mind isn't used to this refusal. You've been so used to acting out your mother's jealousy in times when desire or danger threaten her memory. These threats are presented it seems in Maddie and Hayden who are just trying to help you. Tragically speaking, Norman, your nervous system doesn't know what to do with itself. Like a predator handicapped to touch a prey when instinct tells him to hunt it."

"So that's what it is."

"Yes, Norman. It's taken a while for you to realize this. But now you understand your behavior. And that your Mother is dead you see now."

"Stop it. No she isn't. She's as much alive as anything or anyone I've seen. She knows my every thought."

"Norman, this denial can't last for long."

"Who said anything about denial? I'm not in denial. She's always going to haunt me no matter what. These therapies are temporary, I just...don't know."

"I don't know either Norman. As I've said, I've just about had it. I can only get through a message or proposition so far with you to get you cured. You've gone through many nurses and experimentation with medication and therapies. You've been, I'm sorry to say one of the most difficult cases I've ever had."

"I don't need flattery, if this is what I'm here for."

"I just want you to be open minded, no pun intended and just cooperate for now with what we have. You seem to be making good progress in areas like socialization and physical activity that were sometimes hard for you to do."

"That's a good thing."

"You have to remember, Norman. When we first got you five years ago, you were extremely feral and really didn't have a lot going for you. With the business hurt and the inheritance money from your father drying up too soon, you were pretty much borderline poverty. Mental illness has a knack for preying on the impoverish and isolated."

"Yes, I have extremely detached and complicated feelings for my home. It was a huge part of my identity. It's the only place I've known besides here. I have no idea where I'll end up after this, if I get cured."

"Well, what we'll do is coordinate with a local community housing area that manages reformed criminals, but we'll place you with exceptionally high functioning individuals and reassure you some form of employment in a skilled area of yours. Like hotel or motel services, but you'd be working in teams not alone like you were before. Or you could take up employment at a diner."

"That's true. I guess, but how exactly am I going to assimilate back into society as a whole. People might not forget my face. I don't want people judging me for what I-Mother, did."

Dr. Richmond sighed heavily, "Norman, we'll figure it out. You'd be surprised how many citizens keep their own lives secret from others. You can't imagine what some people will do behind closed doors. Mentally incompetent or not. There are crazies out there worse than you. You aren't alone. It's been five years anyway, so what if they recognize you or not."

"What should I tell them?"

"You should tell them...You're reformed and you've changed and it's all in the distant past. That isn't who you are anymore. But if people want to ask you about your experiences, be open to them and just tell them they were despicable things. But always note that you don't do those things anymore."

"But I had to cooperate with Mother then she asked-"

Richmond narrowed his eyes as Norman began to shift in the cold, metal seat.

"This isn't going to be easy. Somebody will get hurt. It will be me or other people if they ask me."

"If it makes you feel better, maybe we should move you to the suburbs so you'll be less recognizable. But I want you to make it a habit of visiting the city enough so you'll see more people and interact."

"How long are patients at the asylum for?"

"Oh, the maximum for patients like you is approximately seven years, then we have to turn you over someplace else."

Running a hand through his hair, Norman frowned slightly..._someplace_, of course he was in that someplace he always dreaded. There was something wrong with him, he knew that all along, packs and packs of people to support him, but how long would it last? He wouldn't dwell on it, all he wanted was to ensure his fate with these people was secure. Familial support externally was beyond hopeless unlike the majority of compulsive criminals who had siblings, parents, priests, and good role models come in to visit. Norman envied them that way...always a pat on the back or hand shake, or prayer, everything would turn out alright they'd say to their troubled, unstable loved ones.

"Is that it, Dr. Richmond?"

"Yes it is, Norman. You are always very polite to me and the others. If it's one thing that stands out with you amongst the other patients it's your politeness, soft-spokenness, maturity, and manners amid your disabilities."

"I guess I get it from my Mother or Father."

"No, it's just Norman being Norman."

Norman smiled at this compliment and rose to shake his warm-hearted psychiatrist's hand.

"How will I get back to my room?" Norman asked.

"Oh, I'll have Hayden walk you back," Richmond said as he phoned his red-headed attendant up to usher Norman back, "See you in a few weeks, Mr. Bates."

"Yes, sir."

**Same day – Richmond's office – 4:10pm **

"You can come in, Nurse Brink."

Maddie stepped inside the room as Hayden came up to take Norman out. Maddie watched him walk down the hallway which to the right led to the compulsive criminal wing. She could just about feel tears at the edge of eyes for some bizarre reason.

_God, his damn shoulders make too much sense_, she thought.

"Madeline?" asked Richmond inquisitively.

"Yes?!" Maddie said as if snapping out of a trance, _Guess I'll see more of him later_.

"Looks like you're beginning to prove me a bit wrong about him. I swear if he had two or three more episodes, I was going to drop him," he said.

"That's _pretty_ harsh and understated, doc," Maddie said curtly.

"I know it is. But if at first you don't succeed with a patient, you have to drop the case and move on to the next one. Los Angeles Insane Asylum has never put up with such a patient."

"You mean a patient who had an extreme Oedipus complex who dressed in drag to do dirty deeds? Or should I say Electra, because he killed his mother, but yet he didn't want to get close to his father...ah, Bates is crazy. Frickin' Greek tragedy, R-mond."

"Maddie, no games or jokes about patients. We talked about that in your training, remember? Norman Bates is a delicate, fragile minded, sensitive young man. One wrong move and we're done. You for one will be fired and potentially unemployed."

"I get _that_. Nothing has happened, just that one time when he thought we was going to attack Hayden when she put her hand around his waist and me instigating him the first day."

"Instigation with Bates could turn into your neck broken or chest stabbed. Just keep up the good work with him. Getting him outside has really been a plus for him than keeping him indoors most of the day."

"Yep. I respect you very much. I know he'll progress more. I can feel it, he truly is ready and enthusiastic about what I've been doing. Like those meditation sessions. Traditional psychotherapy helps too along the way, but just talking to him one on one is the best thing. Sometimes we get off topic in those sessions, I just see a different man."

"That is a good thing, Madeline. It means this is working, you in particular have struck a chord with each other. Did you tell him more about your past?"

"Whenever it was necessary, I'm still kind of getting over it too, gradually."

"Wonderful. It makes sense with his circumstances. His more obsession and you more addiction. Him more internally destructive and you more externally destructive."

"Are you saying we should date?" "_That is a strange, yet adorable thought."_

"Of course not. It's just a connection, anything to bolster him and get him to realize he isn't alone in going through this."

"I understand, Doctor."

"I trust you with the upmost care for him. You're turning out to be a wonderful nurse and splendid young woman."

Maddie lowered her head as if bowing and started to blush.

"Well, I guess you'd better be going. I think you and Norman have a two more things to do before you leave."

"Oh yeah, work out for an hour, running the track to be more specific and then flashcards."

"That's my girl, now go. Get!"

"Thanks, Dr. Richmond," Maddie said cheerfully and skipped out of the office.

As the clock struck 3:30pm, Richmond scanned his files once more before proceeding to the next patient meeting.

_ "Man, so many characters and personalities in an asylum, not only in patients but in staff. I think we're one of the few places besides schools and universities that deal this much with people's lives."_

**Friday July 10 1964 – Toby's apartment – 7:45pm **

"How many meatballs do you we'll have total?" asked Toby in the process of cooking a late dinner, multitasking a marinara pasta dish.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh...six. I have such an appetite, Tob, it's not even funny," Maddie remarked, "The nurses at my work look at me when I get two separate bowls of tatter tots and a second helping of pancakes. It's the fricken' cafeteria you load up for the day, DUH?!"

"Alright, sweety. Hey, can you remove my glasses from me while I put the meat in the oven?"

"Sure. Why do you wear them?"

"Cause I can. Black thick glasses are the in-thing still. I have a theory they're gonna be popular, say...forty years from now. Though I love my aviator reading glasses. In my opinion, geeky is gonna be the new cool than bobbed hair, go-go boots, and Beatle haircuts. Popped collars were cool when I was growing up in the 1940s."

"Okay, why weren't you a frickin' fashion designer for an actor or actress. I can fight to get you in Hollywood you know. You'll be pretty enough to make it."

"And what about you? You are very beautiful. Hollywood goes after beautiful people, especially couples."

"Hollywood couples are disasters waiting to happen. First comes boy meets girl, then marriage, then divorce, negotiate who should raise the kids, then remarriage then divorce, then someone comes out as gay or drug addict."

"That's ridiculous, Mad. But I do agree Hollywood marriages don't last long say Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, I seriously thought they'd make it. Though you could argue Jimmy Stewart and Paul Newman are making incredible strides."

"Ah. Fuck, Hollywood. Movies are changing in quality anymore besides these major hits coming out like _Mary Poppins_ and _GoldenEye_. I so wanna see Hitchcock's _Marnie_."

"_Marnie_ is about a kleptomaniac who has mother issues and a hatred for men. Why do you want to see it?"

"Because I happen to like some of Hitchcock's work, even if I do think he's a total looney mentally speaking. But aren't all geniuses kinda looney?"

"Some, but not as pathologically speaking as him."

"That's true."

"Alright, I'll see it for you. I've read the book, it seems _fascinating_ and _different_. One big question, Mad, is she a lesbian?"

"No, she's sexually dysfunctional. Seriously though if I were man, I totally knock up Tippi Hedren. Too bad Sean Connery will get her, Tob."

"That was graphic and completely wrong sounding, Mad (*chuckles*). I think there's about twenty more minutes on the meat. But the pasta is done. My goodness, the frickin' sauce smells like my favorite aftershave slash Heaven."

"Toby, you are the king of sauces. From fucking pesto sauce, lobster cardinal, and marinara."

"Didn't know you could mix vulgarity and food together like that, Mad."

"I mix many things together unexpectedly so."

"Hm, I have an idea," Toby said alluringly raising an eyebrow.

Clenching his jaw made Maddie especially weak at the knees, "What is it?"

"How about if you think about rich chocolate fudge streaming down your face while I proceed to do this," Toby said stepping away the counter area, wrapping his arms gently around Maddie and leaned down to kiss her.

The whole atmosphere seemed electric as the kitchen emitted a heat similar to a tropic weather sunroom as she ran her hands through Toby's blonde-brown locks. She thought she felt a spark after their noses touched, each giggling lightly back and forth.

"You are beautiful, Toby. You really are," Maddie said, as a silhouette of Norman Bates intrusively appeared in the back of her mind tempting her to push Toby aside.

This had been happening increasingly so after she got assigned to him. What would it be like to kiss Bates? How would he deal with intimacy? With women now after five years of treatment? Wouldn't that be a worthy experiment? Would a sudden shift of feelings occur or was her destiny to be with Mr. Turner? All cheesy thoughts but then again Maddie wasn't one to be sure of anything no matter what decision she made. Her indecisiveness got her in trouble sometimes with the Chaperone. To rid herself of these thoughts she picked a target group, young well off bachelors to gang bang, to strike big in membership someday to join the Chaperone's 'family.' But that one night in December 1959, lightening had struck her and couldn't bring herself to hurt him, he was too innocent, too fragile, too honest and dear, under a mental curse, she wished to make him better.

"Poor baby," Maddie said under her breath.

"Are you okay?" Toby asked as he saw Maddie's face become increasingly flushed.

"Oh, um, I'm just hungry."

Toby put a hand around her waist and directed her to his L-shaped sofa.

"Girl, I'm no poor baby if that's what you thought. Lay down. I'm slip into something, as you say...totally awesome."

Maddie collapsed onto the sofa and turned on the television, skimming through the news and found an old movie, _Pride and Prejudice_ starring Grear Garson and Laurence Oliver.

"Ah, Mr. Vivien Leigh do you ever not surprise me with your classiness?"

"He may, but check this out, Mad."

Toby sulked along the shadowy walls of the hallway out into the center of the apartment. He wore Rayband sunglasses, a toupee, the black wife beater Maddie adored, half tucked in, corduroy pants with black socks and Clarks. Every inch fit his muscular slender frame, much like did another man Maddie observed but did not speak him name for obvious reasons. But Toby had a much more outgoing aura which balanced out his nerdiness. And why were geeky people suddenly the hot ones than jocks in her mind? All that mattered was Toby in a black wife beater...his hip muscles showed slightly with his toned stomach. He told her that he sometimes worked out at the gym to get himself in shape. He threw off his hat and rustled his hair back into a James Dead do and ran over to the closet to grab his leather black jacket.

"Excuse me, baby?"

Maddie laughed out, falling off the couch.

"You with the dark eyes...come here for a second," he said almost punk like and slouched against the pure white walls next to the L-couch.

"Yeah you come here."

Maddie was still dying of laughter and amassed herself to her feet beside Toby.

"You wanna, catch a ride and possibly let me buy you a drink?"

"You look like a greaser slash player. You're breaking my insides."

"Girl, I've broken many hearts. Just stop by Heartbreak Hotel."

"That's Elvis not Dean!" Maddie chimed in and embraced Toby again, and pulled him to the couch as they necked each other.

"Dude take off your leather jacket, so I can feel your arms."

"If you say so."

Maddie unzipped it for him and multitasked turning off the TV, "You sure you can wait for pen-pen (i.e. penetration)?"

"I'm saving the best moves for later. Until that night. Necking and caressing are turning me on enough as it is."

"You are a strange man, Toby, strange and kinky in your sex life."

"No, Mad, you're the kinky one," he said feeling her breasts, their foreheads touching each other.

Maddie always thought nose caressing to be the one of the sexiest and intimate things they did during these precious moments. Toby was one for hands going up and down a back or behind to slightly below the hip. He eventually collapsed into Maddie's arms and looked up at her with his head on her breast.

"I want milk," he said and reached a hand up to stroke her chin.

"You are such a child, Toby. No a man-child. But a sexy beast man-child. God the combinations," she said softly as one of her other arms rested off to one side.

"Ahhhh, man, the stars," Toby said stretching out getting comfortable against her.

"May I?"

"Always."

Maddie stroked and toyed with his hair for minutes and minutes on end. She could hear his heart beat slowly down in rhythm with hers. If it was one thing psychiatry taught her in analyzing herself it was her hair fetish with men. From those crushes she had in school, to her friends, to men she gang banged, hair was consistently involved. Did hair have some magic ability to turn a person on? Did is suggest something about their personality? Why did she always have butterflies in her stomach or electric current shoot through her brain all because of strands of microscopic dark or light particles? Except for blonde haired Jack and red-headed Dennis, she preferred brunettes. So deep, so mysterious, so suspenseful, so sensual, so headstrong, so level-headed and down to earth.

"Humans are interesting creatures, Toby," she said running her fingers over his forehead.

"What? What does that have to do with us?" he asked.

"Hair."

"You are weird, woman. Here let me up, I think the meat is done."

"Wait!" she cried and pulled him back down to sit.

She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder, her hair falling on his side. Maddie pecked his ear lightly, she could hear him moaning quietly.

"Were you just gonna-?" he asked smirking comically.

"Maybe," Maddie said sneakily.

"I'll be right back," he said smiling widely, shaking his untidy hair and straightening his shirt.

"Double slam dunk! It's done. Please help me set the table and let's talk about the wedding."

"Yes, master, I'll be at your every whim."

The table was set in a matter of minutes with the marinara sauce mixed in with the pasta with the meatballs on top. Beget bread and butter were also portioned on the table along with shrimp. Italian was the treat for the night. The two were quiet and awkwardly tabbing at the meal. Both had long days at work from customers, patients, paperwork, and assignments.

"So...what's going with him?" asked Toby.

"HIM?"

"How do you feel about him?"

"Who?"

"Bates."

"Why?"

"Just thinking."

"Look I've been a bit busy for weeks and weeks at a time. I said weekends I think are gonna be our best bet. It's getting harder and harder to leave the asylum and Bates is nearly half as engaging and mesmerizing as you." "_LIAR_."

"You can say that again. What's up with him? Do you find yourself drawn to a maniac?"

"NO. Of course not. He's not well still and I've been improvising some sessions of ours to help him. Even if it means staying longer."

"I'm getting very worried Maddie. About us. Where we going to be."

"We are fine. Did me biting your ear slightly and you asking for milk from my medium sized boobs convince you we should be together?"

"Tell me the truth. Now, Madeline."

"He calls me by my full name funny enough, a first with him."

Toby banged his fork on the table, then stabbed a meatball in half, setting marinara sauce to platter on Maddie's shirt. He stood up and began to pace toward the window putting one arm up setting his forehead there.

"That was unnecessary," she said begrudgingly and walked over to him putting a hand on his waist.

"Don't touch me," Toby said pulling away from her and sat stubbornly on the L-couch, "You are thinking about him. Constantly. I sense it. You've always had your eyes on him. Are you staying with me because I look like him? A saner and healthier version of Bates? Is that why you engaged to married to me because you felt by hooking up with me when I was vulnerable you'd be fulfilling some sort of indirect desire to help him?"

"Now that's just ridiculous, a pack of frickin' lies, Tob. My mind is so many different places especially with regard to me withdrawal from joints and being tempted back into crime. But I know I can't do it anymore. If I got emotionally involved with Bates hypothetically speaking, it could coerce me back into crime and gang banging. I only mention my experiences to him to help him realize he can get better and be cured, whatever that means. He'll be out of our hair in a year or so. I have to do this, Tob. I have to be there for him or there won't be a second chance."

"I'm just becoming increasingly paranoid, Mad. It's like the thought of you being unfaithful to me is beyond comprehension. I've had my heart broken in the past and I don't want it to be from you. Bates isn't the only one with a fragile mind."

"What are you suggesting, are you ill?"

"No, I'm not. I'm just concerned that you might get sucked into something horrid."

"With Norman. Never ever. He certainly doesn't share the same feelings as you toward me."

"I swear, Mad. If he touches you, I'm going to beat him up so bad, he won't know Mother from Father."

"Then you'll be sued for abuse against the mentally incompetent."

"Screw the law, he's a fucking criminal. A zebra never changes his stripes."

"You talking dirty about my work with him. He's improved dramatically under me. He's helped me come to terms a bit with my past, little by little. You can try to be more open as he is trying to be with his past. You can't just bury things deep into repression once you've solved your problems, Tob. You have to look them straight in the face and deal with them and move on."

"And you are saying I've haven't moved on? You wanna commit me?"

"I'm not saying that. We should just be more honest in our relationship."

"I can't Maddie."

"You're low, very low, my friend. I'm telling you there isn't anything sexual or intimate about Norman and I. He certainly isn't thinking about me. He probably is trying to repress me to impress his imaginary mother."

"What a loser. Maddie, what are we gonna do?" Toby asked putting his hands on his face.

"I am asking for us to move the wedding to August 1st."

"Why?"

"I just...need some time to think things over."

"With your relationship to Bates?"

"No, just with me. My responsibilities and my job. My feelings about marriage in general."

Toby turned back to her and embraced her quickly, running his hands up and down her back, "Oh, Maddie. Please, save me. I don't want you to go. If you quit on me, I have no idea what I'm gonna do with myself. I'll runaway or burn something or trash this place or sell myself to male prostitution. I wish I had my parents. I know it sounds cheesy, but even at thirty you need someone to hold your hand."

"I'm just fiancé, Toby, not your parent. You have friends, what else you need."

"Nothing I guess. But I'll have to keep myself entertained somehow I will. I just-there's no one out there like you Maddie. I know it's a stupid thing to say, but there can only be one person, one master of one's universe, one's focus. We are meant to be with each other, you said so yourself."

"Tob...let's just finish up dinner and go outside on your porch and hold me tight," Maddie said kissing his cheek, "Things will work out for us both. Happiness is just around the corner."

"I love you, Madeline."

"I love you, too," Maddie said tearing up feeling more and more conflicted than ever.

How was she going to tell him that she possessed stronger feelings for her patient, from the start. Love at insanely first sight. Norman himself, she could sense, had not forgot that night he met her. The way he gazed at her, this was it. His only hurdle was his past which she desperately wanted to help him overcome. It would come, she felt it soon...she waited five years in denial for her long lost love. She had to think of steps, practically and rationally on how to approach Toby and transition to a new phase even if it meant being open about the time being until the wedding.

"If you are feeling this much doubt, why don't we just use this month to reconsider our feelings for each other. With an open mind. I might have different goals and aspirations and we can just be friends if things don't work."

"Being just friends is the kiss of death. If that's what it will be we might as well not speak to each other."

"Let's just consider our actions. Never mind being friends. Let's just take it one day at a time, this a big moment in our lives coming up. We don't want to screw it."

"You're right. This is a wonderful idea, Mad. Why didn't we think of it before?"

"Because we are young, stupid, and emotionally irrational that's why."

"Dinner?"

"Yep."

As Maddie and Toby walked back to their dinner table, Emma Spool took her listening device from the door and smiled in utter triumph.

_"Perfect," _she thought walking out of the apartment complex ready for her next move on getting closer to her long lost nephew.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapt. 8 – Rejected

**Wednesday July 15 1964 – Sam's Hardware Store – 10am **

"Hello? Los Angeles Insane Asylum this is Patricia," a secretary said quickly almost robotic over the phone.

"Hi, my name is Sam Loomis. I'm...um...a relative of a victim of Norman Bates. I'm asking if I can take a second party member. The victim's sister, Lila Crane. We need to question him about something."

"Sure, Mr. Loomis. I'll transfer you to Dr. Fred Richmond to confirm the appointment."

"Thank you, maim."

"I don't want to see him. You see him first," Lila interjected and folded her arms in disgust, "I-I'm not ready."

"Fine. I'll be the first one to break the ice," Sam said.

"Hello? Who is calling?" Richmond answered over the phone.

"It's Sam Loomis, sir."

"Sam! Ah, yes! How are things in Fairvale?"

"Pretty good, sir. I am asking if I can speak to Norman."

"Yes, you can. We can always use you as a witness and testament to this man's crimes."

"I know all too well about Bates, sir. When can I come?"

"Tomorrow. Just make arrangements in Los Angeles to stay over a hotel and Bates is yours."

"Alright, I'm on my way. I can't wait to speak with him."

"Good man, have a good day, Loomis. Tell Lila I say hello!"

"I will, bye bye!" Sam said excitedly hanging up the phone.

"Well, here I go!" he said.

"Good luck getting through to a sociopath," Lila uttered under her breath.

**Thursday July 16 1964 – Los Angeles Insane Asylum – the Lawn Area and Garden – 1pm **

Norman decided to talk a walk solo. Maddie was off for the week as she and Toby planned this time to catch up with each other. Norman often wondered what she was like outside the asylum, between the professional Madeline Brink and casual Madeline Brink, or was she just herself? He could always tell when staff members approached him either phonily or honestly to reassure him. His mother would haunt his thoughts some hours. Of course when Maddie was around him, all he could think about was what was happening at the present time. He had to think of ways to manage without her presence, for how was he supposed to be independent and cured. These dangerous feelings brewing within him would not be wise to act on and he could potentially put her in danger. Was it even possible anymore? The promise seemed to be working, but he was never completely sure, only to go along with it to see if his mind could mold in the right direction. Hayden was off in one corner by a tree monitoring Norman's behavior. Peculiar how a peer could act naturally and almost borderline parent him, though they were the same age, as Hayden was turning 32 in November and him the end of August.

Sitting rather lonely and forlorn, Norman glanced around from his sitting area by the lake and willow tree. Nature just emitted this therapeutic air that instantly made him forget his abuse.

"Huh, Father used to take Mother and I to the beach those days," Norman said to himself, "Looking at the sun and clouds now, he'd certainly be open to the idea now, if he were alive."

Chuckling to himself he turned his head around to see if any other patients would sit down. But even they always seemed to turn away from him even if some of them had a similar condition to him.

A fey, fragile looking female patient was watching him from a distance. Her brunette hair was a in a beehive bun and had a white flowing dress. Norman got up and began to walk towards her. This particular patient he had heard about from Hayden as she was one of the patients she visited in the morning to get supplies and take her to breakfast. The brunette was character disordered possessing two other personalities which usually got her into trouble. One committed thievery and the other was a five year old child. Her multiple personality illness blocked her from remembering anything of her crimes. Her physical abuse came at the hands of her father, it was unclear why her mother never got involved and developed the disorder at age 13. She was born mute as a baby. She wasn't that much older than Maddie, around 25 possibly, tragic. To think that it could have been Maddie who had those neuroses. But Norman knew Maddie still like him had demons that had to be sorted out and done away with forever.

"Everyone, everything, seems to have a problem," he said.

He approached the brunette slowly with his hands on his hips. She looked up and down him..._this patient, the mother-obsessed one, was pretty handsome_. She used sign language to describe what she was saying to him. Norman couldn't decipher it for the life of him. He remembered Mother always having an odd sympathy for disabled individuals especially Asperger's Syndrome, this obviously conflicted immensely in her hypocritical treatment of her son who turned out mentally unstable in the end.

"Hi, what is your name again? Hayden talked about you," Norman asked leaning down to her level.

The brunette crouched on the ground and wrote her name with a twig along the mudded area near the lake.

"Jackie. Jackie is that your name?"

She nodded and smiled at him and proceeded to point at the sky.

"Yes, I see. The sky is beautiful and big and vast."

She pointed to two birds on a tree branch above them, they were two robins cleaning themselves and peck each other with their beaks. She made a heart with her hands and held it to her chest then pointed up to the birds again.

"I love birds too. But usually I like them inactive or passive."

Jackie's expression changed and began to step away from Norman. He felt guilty and wished he could have reworded his phrase differently. She was certainly offended, but why?

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that...I mean everyone's different in what they like."

Jackie's eyes began to water and parked herself behind the tree. Norman looked up at the robins who had disappeared quickly after he turned his head. Norman had come up behind Jackie and she scrambled away from him. She crossed her arms in front of her in self-defense, probably meaning 'stay away' or 'get out.'

"Jackie, Jackie, please understand me," Norman said.

But something was off in her eyes and her hair was down strangely from the bee hive bun from before.

"Jackie?"

She shook her head, a smirk appearing at the edges of her face and wrote her name down on the mud again.

"Dolores? Which personality does that do?"

"Dolores" suddenly pushed Norman to the ground and toppled on top of him attempting to steal off his golden chain necklace.

"Hey, stop it! Stop it! That's mine," he said frantically, "The thief, huh? What is it with women and thievery?" And he thought of Marion Crane for an instant.

Hayden ran over with two other attendants to take "Dolores" back to her room.

"Oh my goodness, Norman are you alright?" Hayden asked protectively and gave him a quick hug and smoothed his hair back to its usual do.

"You told me about Jackie. I thought she was safe to talk to. When I started talking about birds she turned on me."

"Well what was she offended about by birds?"

"Well she likes them. But when I said I preferred them lifeless, she got into an episode."

"Norman, she probably correlated you killing women to you preferring birds dead. As a side note, a bird in British slang also means a woman."

Norman shut his eyes and turned his head away from Hayden, but she used her finger to turn it back forward.

"I forgot about that. How could I have?" Norman said.

"All the more reason for your psychosis. You are finally beginning to figure things out with yourself. Connecting the dots one by one. Jackie probably got frightened of you and thought you'd hurt her. I don't think she knows how much you've changed since you first arrived here."

"No, never. She's a nice girl. You were right about her."

"Now that she's inside you have more time for yourself. And...if you are aware a surprise guest is coming to see you."

"Who? I didn't invite anyone."

"Richmond knows him. He saw him the night you were captured and placed at the Fairvale County Court House. He's connected with Marion Crane."

Norman's expression became dead-panned and serious. The name was on the tip of his tongue, but he dared not speak it, "Tell me when I'll see him."

"Actually in about fifteen minutes."

"Hayden, walk with me for a bit. Actually can we run the maze before the guest comes?"

"Sure. It'll help us blow off some steam."

Norman found great pleasure in the maze, all the twists and unexpected turns. Some were dead-ends and some were secret tunnels leading to another part of the maze. The suspense of bumping or startling one another excited him. Only a handful of people would be allowed in the maze to prevent fights and other episodic incidents from happening. Hayden found herself practically panting at every corner to catch up with Norman.

"Oh my God. I'm beat, Norman, where are you?" Hayden said running her hand through her red-hair.

"Tag!" he shouted whizzing past her knocking her to the ground, "Hayden, I'm sorry."

"No it's fine, Maddie knocked me down many times. Hey, let's climb over this wall, I think I see the exit."

"Sure."

They both made their way over the leafy hedge and raced each other to the end of the flowery passage. Both of them tumbled out onto the ground bursting out into laughter.

"Norman, you're so fast and athletic. Why didn't you do sports when you were younger?" Hayden asked almost eying him dreamily.

"Well my father proposed it. Mother never followed up with it. I guess it's kind of on me if I asked one of my teachers. But yet maybe she didn't want me to do it."

"It's called productivity. Everyone needs it."

Norman breathed in heavily and felt his arms collapse at his sides, his hair a bit disheveled, "Here, let me help you up."

"No, no, that's fine. I can help myself, dear sir."

Hayden turned her head to the right side to see an abnormally tall man, around 6'4. He wore a black suit with slicked spiked banged hair. His eyes were pools of brownish mahogany wood. Hayden was instantly starstruck and stood up immediately fixing her hair.

"_This is too unprofessional. He's like...uh, I don't know how to describe him,"_ she thought excitedly and patted grass strands off her skirt and leaves from her hair.

Norman holding Hayden's hand walked up the business, appropriated looking man. His suaveness and absolute sex appeal was beyond anything Hayden could ever comprehend. Her knees felt like jelly amid this earthy looking Adonis with his thick eyebrows and square jaw.

"Your name is—" Hayden said but was cut off by Norman.

"Samuel Loomis."

"Hello, Norman," Sam said and held out his hand, but Norman slapped it away.

"Norman's that's not-" Hayden interjected but was again cut off.

"Hayden can you back off for a moment?"

"If I do that, we have to go inside one of the psychotherapy rooms and I'll wait for you guys. By the way, I'll report to Richmond you hurt a guest and privileges will be taken from you if you continue," she said still eying Sam.

Sam tried to hide a grin back to her, with her soft features, dimples, and green eyes.

"Lead us the way, Ms. Cummings," he said.

"How do you know my name?"

"Richmond told me you'd be with Norman because Maddie has a week off."

"Oh, yes. Yes, I remember. Here we are," she said pulling the door open for Sam and Norman, "Wait, how do you know Maddie?"

"It's a long story, Hayden. I have to speak with Norman. Maddie can wait."

They walked back to where the therapy rooms were located on the compulsive criminals' floor. There were two couches and a long chair bed to nap out or divulge secrets on.

"Alright, men. The room is all yours. We got plenty of time. You both seem to know each other. You guys friends?"

"Acquaintances," Norman uttered.

"Anything more to say about that, Norman?" Sam asked his eyebrows becoming stubbornly furrowed.

Norman glared at him with distaste, how could his own true, best friend turn on him then? Rat him and Mother out...well rat Norman out deep inside. And never see him for five years straight, was this further revenge for not seeing him for those other ten years...just to stick it to him? It was the closest, strangest and most strained friendship in the history of friendships, yet Sam had the volition to see him again. To help him? Why? As the door shut, both men began to face each other with distain in their every inflection.

"Why didn't you tell me I'd be put away here for good? Why did you let me go? Why didn't you stick up for me in court?" Norman cried out.

"I did nothing wrong. You were and still are ill and they ruled you had "some" responsibility for your actions amid what I considered to be a weak insanity defense. So don't play innocent and mind games with me. You had no one, you hear me, NOTHING, in the end deservedly so. If it wasn't for me, you'd be still be broke and locked in your mother identity while giving people the finger in a jail cell. Mind you, Lila went along with this against her will to commit you than incarcerate you for life, for what you did to Marion and the others, so I think you're spared. I could have gone in that white room and beat you to a pulp than for the police officer to give you a blanket for your chill...Effeminate weakling you were."

"Shut up."

"It's the truth, Norman. For the past fifteen years, it was absolute hell. I felt as though a part of me just died like your mother and Chet."

"Don't say that bastard's name!"

"Her lover. I'm an ex-lover too Norman. Remember, Marion? I was going to get engaged to her and eventually marry her. Sure we would have been intimate before marriage, but still we were meant for each other and you took her away."

"Mother you mean."

"You know perfectly well the blood was on your hands. Whether you remember it or not. She wasn't the one who dressed up and killed after being taxidermied into a helpless, lifeless bag of sawdust."

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Norman said running toward Sam pinning him to the ground.

"Hurt me."

Norman's eyes glared red in his sockets as his long hands restrained his built, broad shouldered counterpart. His legs spread out across Sam's to prevent him from leaving his grasp. His breathing became heavier and almost quivering...

"Come on. Do it. You stabbed people, strangle them."

Suddenly, Norman collapsed onto Sam crying into his shoulder, "Oh, God, Sam. I don't want to be locked up forever. I'll wither and die in this institution, all because of HER. I can't bring myself kill anymore because Maddie and I made this silly promise. But Mother...she's put so much pressure on me. She soooo demanding, it's excruciating. My body, it doesn't know what to do with itself at times. I feel like I'm going to explode."

Norman got up and rested on one of the couches and whimpered slightly, "I feel...weak, vulnerable, and castrated."

"Well, you ARE here for a reason. You haven't been well for years. It's taken you time, but you've final begun to 'wake' up a bit. I can't force you to change. You have to do that yourself. Richmond can't force you to acclaim yourself and lead a normal life like normal men, you have to do that."

"You and your choices mantra. It's her fault she made me kill, made me change my identity for that time in court and the first two years here. She'll always dominate, it's only when I give into my impulses I'll feel any sort of relief."

"You sound like a drug addict, Norman. Are you sure Maddie isn't negatively influencing you."

"No she isn't. As a matter of fact, I kind of like the girl. Well maybe not like, Mother wouldn't approve. But I care for her...a lot...seems like I always have," his voice trailed off.

Sam raised an eyebrow and Norman fidgeted his hands and said, "Beginning to. Oh, Sam, she and I are like twins. She was a gang-"

"Yes, I know. I happened to be one of HER victims of young, well off bachelors. So touché. You killed my girlfriend, she vandalized and used me for sex to trash my hardware store. My father's own work and business blood line. Plus brought to line my infidelities with my wife amid her getting me drunk."

"I didn't know that part...poor men. It's strange, how all of us are somehow connected."

"As eccentric as it sounds you are probably right."

"Oh, stop sounding sentimental, Sam. Maddie was a joint addict, she's going through withdrawal still and she still has thoughts of her criminal life."

"She sure sounds like you only less familial oriented."

"I couldn't stand her talking about joints and gang-banging. I can't wrap my mind around thuggery or drugs. Getting mixed up with shady characters. It'd drive me crazy—"

Norman suddenly conscious of what he just said looked at Sam wide eyed.

"Well, now you know how she feels about your obsession with Norma, taxidermy, and the killing sprees at the motel. A pair of misfits. Self-destructive paths you both have taken in your lives."

Norman put his hands in his pockets and walked toward the window, peering out at the city of Los Angeles. All the hustle and bustle, how could he ever fit in?

Turning his head back to Sam again, "Why are you here? Truly? To break my heart like you did the last time. You broke it off with me."

"Correction, you broke off the friendship. I wanted to help you. I wanted to support you through that traumatic moment to lose both parents. Yes, you can call Mr. Rudolph a 'father figure,' a snob, but still a father figure."

"I didn't want you knowing my secret. About Mother. Everything I've done. Unexplainable, unforgivable things. You wouldn't understand. You would have ratted out and taken me to jail. My plan to successfully evade the law would be in shreds and I'd never see Mother again."

"Norman, the police searched everywhere for evidence of another person committing the murder. They only speculated you did it and that's why they committed you for a second time for further questioning."

"I hated the sanatorium. There was bound to be talk in Fairvale. People were already suspicious of the Bates Motel. The laughing and the tears and the cruel eyes staring at you. Unbearable. I didn't want to be locked up. I'd never get to repair things and start things over with Mother."

"You just wanted to evade responsibility for killing her and responsibility in confessing the other murders so you could get away with it. Either pleasing yourself or the illusion of her you continued the murders."

"I suppose so. I guess she didn't anticipate her son coming out as a serial killer."

"I don't think she expected a lot of things from you. This killing streak was your undoing, not hers. You wanted to follow through with your delusions of her telling you to kill those girls. Not your real mother. The real Norma would be appalled and utterly grief stricken you'd ever take such action against her sex, despite the fact she wanted to keep you away from them. No one can speak for her, but that's just my opinion. It's one thing to hate, but kill off that object of hate is a whole new level of the human psyche. Even she couldn't believe probably her own innocent, fragile, child-like teenager would commit homicide on her. You can say she died knowing the true nature of her beguiled son."

Sam's words were burning into Norman's skull, the truth was like the butcher knife stabbing him in every place. Dissociation from it was his only tactic to block out the pain.

"I can't be independent. I can't grow out of her. She's been with me too long. Mother...she's been, like a friend. An imaginary friend, I always wanted since I was little."

Norman's head was becoming fuzzy and his vision almost blurred. Sam was rushing over to grasp Norman from hitting his head on the hard floor.

_ "Remember, Norman. Your mother always loves you. You don't need no one else. Tell the over sexed bastard that one. Who does he think he is?" _

_**"Mother, but I thought you liked Sam?" **_

_"I don't want to hear about. All men are pigs on the inside and out."_

_**"Please, Mother. He's my friend. My only friend." **_

___"Oh, you silly, silly, boy. You dirty little skank, I'm your only friend. Do me a favor and sock out every one of his perfect teeth until there are blood stains on the floor for you to clean. I'd like to see you try." _

_**"I won't! STOP IT!" **_

_ "'I can't! I can't!' How about if I just break your fingers off, huh, boy?"_

"YOU MEN ARE SUCH CHEAP AND ATTENTION WHORING SCUM BAGS! GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" Norman screamed in his mother's voice as he regained consciousness.

"Norman, snap out of it," Sam said and slapped him across the face.

Norman swung back onto the second couch, his voice going in and out of his and Norma's. His head came back around and slouched in the wide space.

"Giving up already? Come on, Norman. I thought you were stronger than that!" Sam joked wickedly.

Sam's hand mark left Norman wincing slightly as he put his hand to his cheek. Emotions of all sorts ran through him.

_"I could fire out and hit him right now. He'd never expect it,"_ Norman thought, _"I just want him to leave at the very least before things get out of hand."_

_"You know you could always strangle him, Norman. After all, HE gave you the idea. Now exploit. Why didn't I think of that before?" _

"Shut up and go away."

_"ATTACK HIM, NOW!"_

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"Mother...please," Norman murmured while putting his hands on his ears.

"Your mother had kind of a heart for me. Despite the fact you never had friends. Do I sense bias in your dear, dear-"

_"Norman, now. Just break his neck so he'll be paralyzed for life." _

"She said she's never cared for you and wants you to leave," Norman uttered as his hands shook waiting to be used at the right time.

"You mean YOU want me to leave. I can see right through your demented subconscious, Norman. I think there is a fine line between Norma's thoughts/words and just Norman being Norman. You want me to go."

"SHE wants you to go."

"YOU. Norman just give me a chance, please! I'm your friend. I've always been. Like a brother more than a friend. I think Norma would have wanted me to-"

"GO!" shouted Norman in his mother's voice turning fiercely up at Sam. His breathe heaving like a lion prowl.

"Goodbye, Norman...for now," Sam said stoically, "If you'll excuse me, I'll have a word with Ms. Cummings."

"Rotten whore she is," Norman bantered still in a semi-trance.

As Sam shut the door deafeningly, Norman calmed down and tried to think of breathing exercises Maddie had taught him before should these episodes happen again.

"Oh what did I say to him? Forget it...it's too painful to recall," he said softly to himself squinting his eyes.

_"Forgetting is always the best cure, sweet heart. Trust in me. You don't need friends or that conniving son of a bitch Sam Loom-"_

"I WON'T HURT HIM FOR YOU. You took him away from me. You did it! YOU! YOU MADE ME DO IT! YOU MADE ME SAY THIS!"

_"Did I boy? Did I? Why don't you do this. For failing me again, go into bathtub water now and I'll count to a million."_

His vision was becoming increasingly blurry again and the couches seemed to be moving up and down and torn apart from all around. Sensations of biting and scrapping ravaged the whole room and the long chair bed was flipped upside down and was thrown across the room causing dents in the white sterile walls. The feeling was unreal, was it truly him doing all these horrific things? His voice went back and forth between his tone and Norma's tone, but everything was so murky and disjointed he barely knew where he was. How did he possess the inner strength to destroy anything he touched? Unable to contain his guilt and shame, Norman blacked out and lost consciousness for what seemed like forever.

It had not been more than ten minutes that Norman woke up in his own room. Sam and Hayden hovering over him.

"What...just...happened?" Norman asked weakly, "Did Mother..."

Hayden shook her head, "You just destroyed one of the newer therapy rooms."

"Sam, I didn't want to. I didn't mean it."

"Norman."

Norman laid back more on his bed and buried his face into his pillow shifting his body weight to the left.

"I want to help," Sam said desperately, "If you just give me a chance. You don't want to do this anymore. It isn't healthy and you know it."

"Just get out of my room, Sam. Hayden, I hate to see what Maddie will have to say and Richmond too when you tell him."

"It's just part of procedure, Norman. You aren't the only one."

"Both of you, go away now," he said cringing up the sheets.

"Sam, let's go," Hayden said grabbing his arm.

As they both exited, Norman sat up to watch them both leave and shut the door quietly, without looking behind them.

**Same day – 5:30pm – The Garden **

It was just about time for Hayden to leave work since the night crew and staff were coming in. Sam and Hayden sat close to each other on one of the benches and glanced at the nurses and doctors leading patients in for the night getting ready for dinner and final checkups before bed. Hayden felt immediately drawn to Sam despite the stupid fact that she only met the guy for this day. She wasn't always one to believe in love at first sight, but no man had ever struck her in any way shape or form than Sam. He looked so statured, so virile, and so exotic looking that she wished to lean up against him sometime if he were open to the idea of dating. And yet at the same time, she felt abnormally insignificant next to him. His very height and weight intimidated her thinking that at first chance if anyone attacked, his fists would be the death of them. And what was the use of trying with such a near perfect man? He was too perfect, unattainable. What other women had he dabbled on his list? Was he married? Was he divorced?

These of course were questions that her father would always inquire about from employment, friends, personality, dealings with women, and relationships to parents and money. Appearances would come second to last. Stability and security was all she desired. If she went to bars or community socials, Hayden would always get weird stares especially from men whom heard she worked at the Los Angeles Insane Asylum. Always judging her if she was too insane despite being a staff member. Perhaps her red-head caused them to back off or she was too good to be true. True she was a bit clingy when it came to friends, but surely she'd be different with a boyfriend. Men had to be treat with secrecy and delicate care, especially in proposition for a relationship. Though the doctors, especially male ones, were taught to treat the former criminal staff members with tolerance and respect she couldn't help but feel ignored or brushed off, with each one of them refusing to associate with her. Hayden was always one to think that's meet her 'true love' at the work place, that all hope wouldn't be lost since she went to the reformed women criminals college. Biological clocks were always a thing for Hayden since she had tried her best to become cured much to the pressure of her father to do so and come to terms with her past. Originally, he expected her to be married at age 22 and be pregnant by 23...ah wasted plans. Her own developed mental illness, specifically dissociative amnesia and auditory hallucinations, if she attempted to remember what exact she did or happened at that time when she was 21. Only auditory sensations not actual memories would surface her since the trauma was so great. Though insanity seemed like a far cry, her past still ate away at her influencing her every move. Those explosions and gunshots, they were still there. And her strained relationship with her father, she too wished things could be like they were before. She had broken his trust over what happen that day...

"Why are you holding my hand?" asked Sam inquisitively.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I just...my hands, um. It's getting chilling out here," Hayden said running a hand through her hair.

"You know you handle Norman well."

"Ha, he hasn't been the easiest to work with for the past two years I was assigned to him."

"Norman is a complex guy. You have to have a certain sensitivity toward him. You don't love him, you don't hate him. You pity his decrepit existence for the past fifteen years. You wish things to be better for that person in other words, though they are trying to put the pieces back together."

"We all wish that for each other, Sam. I'm just happy Norman is understanding it, even if he has to force himself to."

"True. We can only try and be patient. His mother obviously deprived him of that. This isn't the last of our talks. He may hate me for penetrating his mind in such a way, but he's more desperate than he's letting us believe. I wants to come to terms with Norma's memory but doesn't know how."

"I never thought of it that way. I didn't know you both used to be best friends."

"I don't think we ever broke up. Norman and I have a close, yet strained friendship. We have to give it time. He can be turned, but he has to be willing to. He's trying, he really is."

"As my father always said, 'Prayer is the answer.'"

"I don't believe in prayer or religion much. My mother and father were religious. My mother still is, note my father past away seven years ago. She thinks I'm going to hell because I don't go that often. I just don't see the use of it in my daily life. What is a supernatural being's purpose in telling me what to do or how to live?"

"Sam, that's horrible. My father said that if the world didn't have religion, chaos and sinfulness would find its ugly head in more people."

Sam smiled at her and Hayden cocked her head back laughing softly, "I'm not a seminarian, but I've kind of found going to church now just more monotonous. So I don't go often. I mean I go, but I can't connect anymore. Like the same stuff I learned in Sunday school applies to me now...LAMO."

"You're talking my lingo. I guess that explains my raucous behavior...well, a part of it."

"Raucous behavior? You mean other women you've had affairs with?"

"Aren't you the inquisitive one?"

"Tell me. I won't judge."

"When I first met my first wife in college in my junior year, my parents reprimanded me for eloping her without them knowing. Stacy Gavin...tall, blonde haired, and fabulously shapely figure. Actually most of my affairs have been with blondes while we were married. I just can't explain why I started cheating on her. Because I was too young or too immature. She was a bit clinging and but never let it both me. Her parents seemed like decent people and my parents eventually got to liking her, though my mother would have appreciated it if I married Mexican."

"Every parent it seems wants the best for their kids."

"I know. We were married from 1953-1960. Numerous affairs from me out the whazzoo. They'd take place during my lunch breaks of course. I thought night times were too conspicuous. I never told my parents about it, my mother for a fact would disown me if she found me cheating. Stacy could see right through me though. She was always faithful to me and kept praying that I'd change and this whole thing with my wandering eye was just a nightmare which would pass. Once Marion entered the picture in 1957 I just stopped caring for that time for Stacy. Earlier that year, she told me flat out that she recently was seeing another man. We wanted to divorce that year, but we just didn't have the money to. So we each pursue our own affairs and would pay off alimony and proceed with the divorce court. The man she was seeing was from Europe, possibly from England and he came abroad in search of employment in America, but then got a major job offer in France. He asked many times for Stacy to come with him at this patent firm as his closest assistant. I haven't heard from her since. You can say Marion interrupted us...but yet I fell for her and she got the picture that I was no innocent either and neither was she so we were even. From then on, my loyalties were solely toward Marion from 1957 until 1959 when she was killed, funny how an unstable marriage can produce a stable affair."

"It's tragic how you really want to propose to Ms. Crane in the end. Sam Loomis, the lady's man. So why are you spilling all of this to me?"

"Because...you and your facilities can work your therapeutic magic and medications to alter the mind and command from your voice from your fingers as to how to solve problems for people."

"We aren't magicians, Sam. This stuff takes time, remember?"

"I'm just joking with you. Don't you have a sense of humor?"

"I do. What are you asking?"

"What I'm asking is..."

"Yes?"

"Uuuummm...oh, I don't know."

"What? You want to meet up?"

"Really?"

"Sure."

"Great!"

"I hate to ask you this but could we do weekends? It's such a distance from Los Angeles to Fairvale."

"You're right. It's irrational to go back and forth. It was ridiculous when I had to catch a plane to get to Marion."

"Luckily technology has improved since 1959."

"Oh, Hayden, you don't want to go out with me. My eyes...I don't want to hurt you like I did Stacy with Marion and the other women."

"Look, let's just take things slow. You told me your debts have been paid off and the alimony stopped in 1960 when your wife married that man."

"Yes, my father's death in 1957 was a hard blow and he was in tremendous debt so that was a strain on Marion's and my affair, all the money going to my father's account to pay off his debts and my ex-wife the alimony. Though I hurt Stacy, I didn't want her to be unstable despite the fact that the man was moderately well-off, we both had to do our part. Sometimes, I wished I hadn't hurt her. The guilt would occasionally plague me even as Marion and I had our intimate moments together. Marion could care less about Stacy's and my situation. All she wanted was marriage immediately no matter what I thought. All she wanted was her own fulfilled happiness anyway she could get it."

"Then are you certain you want to get to know me then? With your experiences. I'm too gullible for your taste. I've never been in a relationship before. With my work, relationships are so time consuming."

"Hayden, come on. I think I must be one of those people who just need to have someone or else they can't function. For once in your life, just have some adventure. And perhaps maybe, just maybe you can convince me for one good reason why I should attend church more often."

"Alright. Say Friday, I eat out with you at 8pm at Da Vinci's. You drive me back home by 11:30pm."

"I take it you are the traditional marriage type."

"Yes I am and you can't change my mind. Intimacy and exploration of one's bodies after marriage is most gratifying."

"I take it your father told you that?"

"Yes, and I'm sorry to say Samuel Loomis, that's the only way one can truly sanctify marriage. He always frowned on affairs," Hayden said nearly tearing up suddenly.

Sam furrowed his brows more, "Was he unfaithful?"

"No, my mother was. She left us when I was three. My father was always faithful to her, amid their personality differences. After a while, though, they just couldn't stand each other's company or friends, her night life and parties and him all reserved, serious and church going."

"Is he alive still?"

Hayden wiped her eyes and peered up at Sam, "Yes he is. He's failing in health, a cancer, they can't explain it. But he refuses to see me unless I've 'gotten myself together.'"

"What did you do?"

Hayden stared off in the distance and felt her head twinge slightly at the thought of an explosion.

"Did you feel that humming?" she asked.

"I didn't hear anything, Hayden."

"Oh," she said looking around, "Right. Well, anyway, we can discuss that more later. It's a date, Mr. Sam Loomis," and shook his hand firmly.

"Good day, Ms. Cummings," Sam grinned and beamed at her.

Sam and Hayden walked each other to their cars as the sun set over the asylum leaving the place a purple, pale blue in the moonlight coming up. They followed their respective cars for miles on end. Hayden took one depressing, longing minute to watch the Greek god-like man disappear in his chariot towards the deserted highway, putting her elbow and head out the window to ponder her thoughts about him as she parked her car in the drive way of her apartment.

**Friday July 17 1964 – Activities Room 8:30pm **

Norman took a seat as one of the top twenty patients in the Activities Room to have the least episodic moments in the past six months. Special privileges were given to patients who cooperated the most in their therapies to view a movie of the asylum's choice. _Singin' In the Rain_ was the top choice among the staff for it was deemed watchable, PG, and without violence of course in encouraging deviant behavior. Comedies, Musicals, and sometimes Romance and Dramas made it in depending on the overall nature and conditions of the twenty patients and what kind of content they could handle as a whole. Horrors and Action were off limits.

The patients were evenly divided in categories of illnesses between the compulsives, periodical, moderate, and severe [from character-disordered, borderline personality, depersonalization, dissociative, schizoid, comorbids like Norman etc.]. Even two members of the thuggish serial killer clique were there, but Norman never associated with them. How did the woman and the young man around his age make it through their therapies? They were worse than him, incorrigible at best and unpleasant to look at and hang around.

"Alright everyone take your seats! The twenty of you have worked hard long hours of mental and emotional strength to get here. Keep up the good work!" Dr. Richmond said with three other orderlies by him, "But more of that later. And now, I'd like to proudly present, _Singin' In the Rain_ starring the one and only Gene Kelly."

It was very rare for Norman to be seen anywhere in Fairvale with regard to travel. He mostly relied on walking than car driving despite the fact he had a license. Expenses were slim and he couldn't really afford a car which made his trips into Fairvale extremely infrequent. There was bound to be talk about him.

_**Where was Norman Bates? What happened to him? **_

_**The bad business obviously affected him**_ they'd say.

_**He was always a bit peculiar**_**, **_**that young man.**_

_**What exactly is his purpose here now? That's weird. **_

_**That's not typical of Norman to be that infrequent. **_

_**Man's practically a hermit by now. **_

All in the past now, but the movie theaters were the perfect places for him to slink inside and slip out without anyone noticing. For good reason to be sure so he wouldn't disrupt or disturb them. For that hour and a half or two hours, he'd escape from reality and immerse himself in a different universe.

Whenever people would see him or stop by to talk to him while he shopped people would walk away rather unsettled by him. Like he was in a hurry to get away from someone. Sometimes he often thought people forgot about him completely and life just moved on as it was in Fairvale. They could never suspect anything at the mansion or motel, he couldn't afford them to. Anyone who dissociated or moved out of the community was never spoken of again. It's like if any person, old comer or new comer, visited town the whole community was stifled and unable to think of an explanation as to how to approach the individual person. What had happened or was happening with them? Who the hell were they? What were they thinking? Where did they come from? Why did they have to intrude on the nicely kept town? Fairvale was a tight, cliquish community with strict morals and respectability. The nuclear family and honest entrepreneurship were core values to the town. Domesticity and loyalty were treasured characteristics also. Fairvale was practically crime free, only robberies but never murders pervaded the streets of the town. Sheriff Chambers and his wife worked tireless to maintain the reputation of Fairvale as a peaceful, cohesive, and intellectual set of individuals. Norman of course made little attempt to reciprocate after his mother's death. True he was shy around the town's people, but after the awful deed, he was suddenly cloistered. People would at times shun him away from conversation or give him the cold shoulder if he wanted to ask about something or talk to someone he knew to get groceries or supplies for taxidermy.

_People always mean well, they cluck their thick tongues and shake their heads oh-so-very delicately. _

Individuals, atypical and paranoid looking, such as himself, weren't welcome it seemed, in a _de-facto_ segregationist sense after he was committed those two times, especially the second in questioning over the deaths of Mother and Chet. An outcast, a dropout, a failure. Perhaps the people knew all along it was him, but chose not to believe it.

_Not Norman! Not the sweet hearted and boyish, shy angel we all saw grow up so fast!? _

_Him kill his mother? The one person in the universe to birng life to him? _

_Matricide, Norman!?_

It pained him to think of such accusations, perhaps they were crazier in denying there was anything wrong in their community. Him being the blemish on Fairvale's reputation...if Mother hadn't made him...

The movie was still rolling as he perused his thoughts more. _Good Morning_ and the timeless _Singing in the Rain Song_ were always favorites. Watching the actor twirl and perform acrobatic moves like that was genius. He must have practiced for hours. How is that possible? Norman heard that Kelly had a fever in filming the rain scene...ouch.

Debbie Reynolds was looking as radiant and girl-next-doorish as ever. A sick thought had entered Norman's mind for a plot story that she could be a criminal, silly as it was. Her demeanor and chirpy spirited aura reminded him very much himself in a childlike way. One minute you could be a saint and putty in one's hands, but on the flip side someone's worst nightmare, all through a façade of normalcy and malaise, no one would suspect a thing.

"_Oh that's just despicable,"_ Norman thought, _"Let's just get through the movie."_

The dance sequences especially all out full chorus numbers engaged him enough to the end. The bright colors and jovial attitude of the characters awakened some happy feelings within him. Maybe there was some hope things would turn for the better in the coming months if his condition improved. Everyone in the picture was perpetually blissful and friendly toward each other. Turning off the movie meant returning to reality, a cynical and complex world of adaption and strength. Patients had to put their best foot forward in getting themselves cured. Emphasis on treatment for non-criminals was just the same as criminals, each had a standard to be rehabilitated the best as possible. For some, one may never be cured, but better than their prior conditions, which made the treatment all the more worth it.

"Thank you all for cooperating tonight. I hope you enjoyed the movie. I'll have my orderlies walk each of you back to your rooms. Let's gather in four separate lines," Richmond said and led the way out the door.

Norman was surprisingly the first patient to stand up amid the others half asleep or stubborn in attitude to move. Each attendant, nurse, and orderly coordinated each and every room stop to ensure safety back in assignments.

"Goodnight, Norman," a young male red headed orderly said kindly.

"Goodnight, Ray," he said back.

The moonlight shone through the half empty walls of Norman's room.

"_Have to think of things to do for a few days before she comes back_," he thought.

"Now, Mother...this is hard. Liking someone else isn't going to fix this. It's like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. I can't afford to take risks," he muttered to himself under the covers, "Why does this have to be so difficult and back-breaking?"

Norman had trouble falling asleep that night. Maddie consumed his thoughts, while Mother's voice was heard shrieking in the background...the forbidden and mind-exploding things he could do to this nurse, betraying Norma's trust.

"_Go to Hell. You will go to hell, if touch her. If I had a pole, I'd use it as a steak to put through your weak chest. You always were a weakling. How's that for stuffing me?" _

Norman suddenly sat up straight in bed, his forehead perspiring and wiped off the spit on the side of his mouth. His pants strangely felt wet...no. He knew exactly what it was but the word was so filthy and perverse that any moment a syllable came out Mother would surely hound him hour after hour about wandering eyes. He ran his hands over his face and chuckled slightly.

"I truly am mad. I must be. You ruin me, Mother, you truly do (**laughs out loud**). I'm ugly, filthy, oh, filthy! Unclean!"

"_Good boy. You finally followed through with me. Now just imagine cutting off that dark haired bitch for good."_

Norman's eyes widened and then placed his hand humiliatingly into his hands.

"No, it's not good...oh, God, Mother. I-I..." he stammered and looked down on his bed sheets.

Those dreams had with Maddie were personal, private, yet Mother had full access to them. There was no such thing as privacy, especially at home. The walls through held tightly by wood on the edges were paper thin and it was easy to yell and answer across the hallways and floors.

"Madeline..." he said trying to get used to the sound of her name on his tongue, it had a certain elegance and virtuousness about it, "She's a wonder."

A wonder she was...with her feather like, wavy brown hair, piercing dark eyes, and her toned legs. What were other women like than his mother? Everything just seemed so black and white. In a way, Maddie's brutal streak nearly rivaled Norma...but there was just something different about her. He didn't seem to mind if Maddie got frustrated at something than he would if his mother got frustrated over one of his mistakes. In a way, it was almost adorable seeing her a bit upset about something. Maddie possessed patience and grace, but also a sense of seriousness and an inner caregiver within her but not too much of it to smother him.

Those "encounters," three exactly he remembered with Norma were unique, yet perverse and desperate all out of his desire and attachment to her, since she was the only female he could project his feelings on. Amid her pleasure and demands on him, she pushed him away. But with Maddie, things seemed less unnatural, less sinful though forbidden by Mother at the same time. With Maddie, he could truly express himself and be himself like that moment he played the piano for her. These feelings, unknown and forgotten that overtook him, what did this all mean for him now?

"I gotta get out of here," Norman said under his breath and looked around for something to unlock the door.

Luckily a thick piece of notebook paper left by Maddie was in the trashcan and used it to get outside. The hallways were shadowy and ominous, Norman anticpated that anyone if they were crazy enough could break out at any minute and clobber him or the security guards would have their mits on him first. He moved swiftly down the hall until he got to the backdoor entrance to the lawn, garden, and maze area. The whole scenery was bathed in moonlight and the stars were perfectly visible in the sky, amid Los Angeles's city glow. Norman ran toward the middle of the field and observed the velveteen, night sky for minutes on end.

"_Ah! Wow, the Big and Little Dipper! Man, Sam and I used to..."_ he thought..."_Sam Loomis, what a debonair slob and classy character_."

Norman laid down on the freshly cut grass putting his hands behind his head, while wiping excess sweat from the sides of his eyes.

"Wonder where he is or what's he's thinking of me now?" Norman said and concentrated more on the stars.

**June 17****th**** 1946 **

_**The two teenage boys were seated outside the mansion on the hillside taking turns pointing out shapes and designs in the night sky. A meteor shower was supposed to come any minute. It was a little past 12am which got Norma quite annoyed since it was past Norman's bed time, but she let it reluctantly slide since Sam was over. From the desert, everything was quiet and conditioned, what was then the main highway barely had any cars on it to emit light distracting from the view. **_

"_**Wow...look Sam! Orion's Belt!" Norman said pointed up. **_

"_**We just saw that one, silly. Oh, look I see one that looks like a fox!" Sam shouted perking up. **_

"_**I wish Mother could see this." **_

"_**You can tell your mom after, it's gonna come any second now." **_

_**Norman turned around and saw Norma peaking at the door. She was smiling at him strangely enough and mouthed for him to sit down and enjoy himself with Sam. Highly unusual for her to be so positive that moment, but he cooperate and resume conversation with his best friend. He could never be sure, but Norman thought he heard her talking to herself from her room, her window was always open halfway, "Are you happy, dear? Am I doing a good job, now?" **_

_**What? What is she saying? He wished to hear exactly what her thoughts were, especially those most private. **_

"_**Here it is! Here it is!" Sam exclaimed and Norman turned his head quickly. **_

_**A red, orange, greenish streak shot across the sky. The meteorite swirled with unparalleled natural beauty, such a tremendous object capable of destruction and rebirth of new life forms to come as he had read in many books on the beginnings of Earth. **_

"_**Majestic, exotic, just waiting to be explored. Maybe someday we can find out where it landed or what planet it came from, Sam." **_

"_**Perhaps we shall." **_

"_**Thanks Sam." **_

"_**For what?" **_

"_**For everything. You come up with such brilliant ideas." **_

"_**Well you are the brains to my brawn still. Don't discount yourself for not being clever. We both have our shares of awesome." **_

"_**That's true." **_

"_**Hey! There's more coming, Norman!" **_

_**Both boys fastened themselves to the grass with their hands digging into the dirty. A firework show splattered across the sky, with streak upon streak cutting across the clear night with the full moon on the right side of the mansion. Images of fire and metal jetted their best abilities for about an hour straight until the streaks became less frequent. **_

"_**You know Sam. Looking up at the meteors tonight made me think of a painting I have in my room." **_

"_**What's that?" Sam asked. **_

"_**A painting of a lone ship at sea." **_

"_**That's imaginative, but we can't build a ship out in the desert, Norman. I know you're being idealistic. Unless we went out to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and built it near the Colorado River."**_

"_**Yeah...true. To think we could be like Louis and Clark on their expeditions."**_

_**Both boys were silent for little under twenty minutes, just enjoying the passing breeze. Norman ran his hands through his hair and put them in his pockets. **_

"_**Hey Sam?" Norman asked. **_

"_**Hm?" Sam asked perking up his head and turned left on his side at Norman. **_

"_**When we graduate, let's get out of this town." **_

_**Sam's eyes widened and then morphed into a puzzled expression. **_

"_**We'll go on REAL adventures. Not this kid stuff." **_

"_**Sure...but isn't there anything fun you want to do NOW?" **_

"_**Not much, what would you expect in a boring place like this?" **_

_**A brushing noise came at the door of the Bates mansion, as Norman had uttered his last sentence. He turned around and saw Norma again smiling. **_

"_**I think I'd better go," Sam whispered in Norman's ear. **_

"_**Okay," Norman said and gave Sam a bear hug. **_

"_**I'd do just about anything to get away too, bud," Sam said. **_

_**Norman nodded seriously and walked Sam down to the driveway. Suzanne was already in the drive way waiting for her proud son to come. He wished him and Suzanne goodnight as the car pulled out cruising toward the highway. Waving off to them in the distance, Norman turned his gaze up to his mother and ran up the stone steps. **_

"_**Oh, Mother. It was wonderful. I wish you were beside us," he said excitedly. **_

"_**You don't want me there while you're there with your best friend," she said tired and dry sounding. **_

"_**You're my best friend, Mother." **_

"_**No, I'm not. Stop saying that. Don't worry when you graduate, you'll be begging to be far from this house." **_

_**Norman felt shuttered and saddened by Norma's comment. **_

"_**Don't say another word. Just go up to bed before I pound you." **_

_**He sulked away upstairs and for a moment watched her from the top of the stairs. She made her way to where it seemed like to the kitchen to make some tea for herself. **_

"Why would she want me to go away? She needed me, all this time," Norman said.

He got up and stretched himself and made his way back to the entrance toward his wing.

"Enough is enough for one night," Norman said straightening out his sleeves and collar of his grey mock turtleneck.

He passed by numerous rooms in the compulsive criminal wing occasionally peering in the door windows of the patients to see if they were truly asleep. His room was in the middle of the hallway, but suddenly Richmond's office was caught in the corner of his eye. He still had the thick white sheet of paper. He always wanted to see Maddie's office cubical.

"No, this is wrong. Some doors are just meant to be shut. I feel finally...a headache, I don't know," he said.

He took a deep breath for a moment and out of contradictory nature opened the door. The whole place resembled a ghost town with the windows tined grayish and silver and papers lying haplessly on the secretary's desk. Richmond's office was closed off entirely. Norman expected there to be bodies working and giving instructions as quick as possible to each other.

"_Here she is!"_ he thought.

Maddie's cubical space was marginal compared to the other nurses. It possessed a fern, two paintings of kittens and puppies, and a picture of what looked like a tall, short-haired, square-jawed man with the word 'Chap' written in the corner of it.

"So that's the Chaperone she was talking about. Definitely wouldn't want to cross HIM," Norman said quietly.

Feeling like a hypocrite, Norman turned his gaze away from the deathly staring Godfather. Almost as though the picture itself commanded orders for respect and diligence from every viewer. Papers upon papers crowded Maddie's desk. Norman dared not touch any of them in case she suspected someone disturbing them.

The last picture was of Maddie and this other man, Norman presumed to be her fiancé. Her engagement picture no doubt. In the young man's face, Norman sense joy and over-abundant happiness, ready for commitment, a new beginning in his life. Maddie on the other hand was beaming, yet there was a subtle sense of nervousness on her bottom lip. Her one hand seemed to be holding the young man close by the waist yet the other at his stomach slightly pushing him away almost like he had bad breath.

"She's not content with him," Norman muttered, "But why?"

She should be lucky to have such stability and security in her life. What else does she need? The young man besides his blondish-brown hair and chin, bore a striking resemblance to Norman. Had she secretly desired him all this time and mass projected it in selecting this young man? Being a substitute for a lover was one thing he knew all too well and never wished to repeat again. The ideas for this sort overwhelmed Norman but gradually came to understand the true nature of his once duplicitous, yet dutiful, hardworking nurse.

Norman picked up the engagement picture cutting off Toby's presence and kissed her image.

"What do I do, Maddie? What are _you_ going to do? What do _we_ to do?" he asked desperately, "I can't afford to break anyone's heart anymore."

He remembered what Mother said to him an hour and a half earlier in his room. Dead or alive she still had a strong grasp on him. Then his mind returned to that memory with Sam's conversation and Norma's befuddled statement to Norman before he went to bed. Her message to him that night wasn't very consistent with her paranoid mindset and jealousy. Why would she want him to leave? Was there something wrong with him? Or something wrong with her?

Norman put Maddie's picture back on the desk quickly and locked the door to Richmond's office and then his own bedroom.

"Goodnight, Mother," he said out loud expecting a response back...silent as the desert surroundings around the motel as he drifted off peacefully into sleep.


End file.
